Stereolab - Instant Holograms On Metal Film

On April 2, 2025, exactly sixteen years to the day since Stereolab announced their indefinite hiatus, a package of "unsolicited Stereolab material" landed in fans' inboxes and posters bearing the band's name appeared in cities around the world. Six days later they confirmed what everyone had already guessed. Instant Holograms on Metal Film, released May 23 on Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp, is the first Stereolab album in fifteen years, following Not Music in 2010.

Nothing has rusted. Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier wrote all thirteen tracks, performed with the 2025 touring lineup of Andy Ramsay, Joe Watson, and Xavi Muñoz, and the arsenal of vintage gear is as deep as ever: EMS synths, a Prophet-5, Mellotron, Wurlitzer, Solina strings, a rack of ancient drum machines. "Aerial Troubles" reintroduced the band's weightless motorik glide, "Melodie Is a Wound" stretches past seven minutes, and "Immortal Hands" and "Esemplastic Creeping Eruption" show a group still finding new corners in a sound they invented. Cooper Crain and Rob Frye of Bitchin Bajas fill out the electronics and woodwinds, Ben LaMar Gay adds cornet across three tracks, and Holger Zapf of Cavern of Anti-Matter, Marie Merlet of Monade, and Molly Read all turn up.

Critics greeted it as a genuine return rather than a reunion victory lap, with the album holding a Metacritic average of 84 out of 100 across fifteen reviews and landing on year-end lists. It charted in the UK, Germany, Belgium, and Australia, which is not a sentence anyone expected to write about a Stereolab record in 2025.

This CD edition runs the full sixty minutes across all thirteen tracks, mastered by Bo Kondren with sleeve design by Vanina Schmitt. The comeback nobody was promised and everybody wanted.