My favourite album by Stereolab, one of my favourite bands. It brings together the band's love of krautrock, 60s garage and easy listening, whilst striking the perfect balance between experimentation, repetition, melody and marxism (probably) - managing to be both derivative and innovative.
Even the track names (or "tests" as the album calls them) could be Stereolab titles. my favourite being side one, test 2: "Lateral modulation for determination of tracking pressure in conjunction with bias correction".
Nice sleeves
ReplyDeleteWell spotted
ReplyDeleteThere were a few in this series of test records, this being their one from 1974, but the test record Hi-Fi Sound put out in 1969 has a first track title of "Test 1 (Channel Recognition, Phasing And Balance. Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements.)" which is probably where the album title inspiration came.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. I'll have to get hold of a copy.
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