Available on: Drag City / Duophonic LP

With a career spanning two decades, Stereolab are a British institution. At various periods welding together krautrock, electronica, sixties pop and even European cinema soundtracks, they created a defiantly distinctive sound that has never been successfully replicated. For many the band were at their most appealing in the mid-nineties, when their restrained retro-futurist experiments acted as the perfect antidote to the mainstream excesses of the Britpop era.

Amble forward to 2010 and we find the fate of the group hanging in the balance. After announcing an indefinite hiatus last year, the experience of listening to Not Music is tainted by the knowledge that this could well be their last release. You’d therefore be forgiven for expecting to hear the despondent death rattle of a band long since cast into irrelevance, yet the LP sounds surprisingly fresh. A sister album to 2008’s Chemical Chords, this new offering consists of tracks made during the same studio sessions, yet it is far more than a collection of cast-offs and B-sides. Instead it stands as a worthy addition to the group’s canon in its own right.

Most of the tracks on offer conform to the traditional Stereolab template. Upbeat opener ‘Everybody’s Weird Except Me’ sets the tone for the album: unashamedly kitsch while remaining effortlessly cool, its playful chimes, vintage keys and Laetitia Sadier’s enticing vocals could have been lifted straight from 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet. The instrumental ‘Equivalence’ also harks back to the finer moments on Emperor Tomato Ketchup and its layered guitars and scattershot percussion acknowledge that the band are more than simply a backing group for Sadier’s Gallic tones.

Yet aside from the standard fare there are plenty of surprises for those willing to dig a bit deeper. ‘Delugeoisie’ is a mournful, off-kilter delight while ‘Sun Demon’ opens with a refrain lifted straight from The Castaways’ ‘Liar Liar’ before mutating into an up-tempo rhythmic workout. Persevere and you can also find the warped fairground ride of ‘Aelita’ and the mischievous time-signature changes of ‘Leleklato Sugar’.

Always comfortable to take inspiration from their own back catalogue, it’s unsurprising that Stereolab have often drawn criticism for being too self-referential. That being the case, it was a wise move to toss in a couple of remixes amongst the new material, allowing some fresh faces to re-contextualise their sound. Emperor Machine’s take on ‘Silver Sands’ deposits Sadier’s glacial voice on top of razor-edged synths and driving percussion to create the ultimate soundtrack to a road trip down Kraftwerk’s autobahn. Weirder by far is a remix of ‘Neon Beanbag’ courtesy of Atlas Sound. The Deerhunter front man deconstructs what was originally a featherweight pop tune and transforms it into an eight minute odyssey of gradually intensifying sonic atmospherics. The end result sounds like a transmission beamed back from the Phoenix Mars probe if it encountered aliens with a penchant for Brian Eno and Panda Bear.

After a string of unremarkable releases culminating in the decidedly lacklustre Chemical Chords, it was hard to morn the passing of a group that seemed to have passed its sell-by date. In this context the release of an album so full of potential over a year after the band’s dissolution can be interpreted as either a defiant riposte to critics or simply a timely reminder for fans that their loyalty was deserved. Whether paying homage to their past or looking to the future it’s clear that Stereolab still have a unique place in British music; a bittersweet realisation when their own future is so uncertain.

James Waldron