Stereolab - Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements

Stereolab's second studio album is the band at its loudest and most hypnotic. Recorded in May 1993 at Blackwing in London with producer Phil Wright, it was the first full-length to feature Mary Hansen and Andy Ramsay, the lineup that would carry the group through its most celebrated decade.

The sound leans hard on distorted guitars, feedback and dissonant keyboard drones locked to a relentless motorik pulse. "Tone Burst" and "Pack Yr Romantic Mind" set Lætitia Sadier's cool, unhurried vocals against Hansen's harmonies and buzzing organ, while the 18-minute "Jenny Ondioline" is the centerpiece: a sprawling krautrock odyssey that samples the same 1969 hi-fi test record the sleeve art was adapted from. The record signs off with "Lock-Groove Lullaby," which ends in a locked groove that will loop until you lift the needle.

The album reached number 62 on the UK albums chart and number 7 on the UK independent chart, and it has since earned a place on lists of the finest post-rock albums ever made. It is the essential document of early Stereolab, the bridge between their noisy beginnings and the space-age pop that followed.

This remastered reissue from Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks and Warp Records presents the original ten-track album across two LPs and four sides of vinyl.