Another installment in the recent push of excavating the bottomless excursions of the mighty Stereolab, one of the 90s most original and brightest lights on the musical horizon. And a 'groop' that understood the value of collectable arcana, reams of rare colored vinyl, split singles, flexis, tour-only handouts (mostly pressed by their own label, Duophonic) to help keep your local indie record store thriving and endless envy aroused. I can think of maybe only Tortoise and The Melvins, possibly the Flaming Lips, who understood and partook in such esoteric audience engagments at that time. So after 2019's reconstitution of the groop for live appearances (after a decade off) and rereleases of their Elektra catalogue (all with bonus material), this is the second of the recent Switched On series, and 5th overall, which is dedicated to trying to compile and reorient this pile of rare and experimental (even for them) golden detritus. It's amazing that combining all of the 5 Switched On sets with their out-of-print Oscillions of the Anti-Sun collection of rare EPs, you'd have a solid 10-disc box set of marvelous music that didn't make the cut for one of their 10 official album releases. Very very few artists of the 90s have been so fecund in imagination and productivity.
On the new set, Pulse of the Early Brain, the long-lost Low-Fi EP from 1992 is recovered. I've always wondered why this wasn't paired with their pre-Elektra record Peng! as a single CD (and I'm not entirely sure whether or not Peng! is still in print or not), but Low-Fi is not only a fabulous example of early Stereolab meshing of kosmiche, shoegaze fuzz and dream pop, but a record that was already hard to come by during their commercial heighth of the late 90s. Also included is the second (and much more rare) EP collaboration with Nurse With Wound, Simple Headphone Mind. The rest of the record is a grab-bag of demos, rare promos, super-rare flexis, a live cut and an unused installation soundtrack. So...damn near perfect to these ears.
Jinnistan wrote: