New Music From The Comet Is Coming, Stereolab
The Comet Is Coming
Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery
(Impulse!)
Some lofty goals are proposed in the manifesto of the London trio The Comet Is Coming about its “musical expression forged in the deep mystery”, which cites steps such as “the overcoming of fear” and “the embracing of chaos”.
On the trio’s new album for the legendary Impulse! label, King Shabaka (reeds), Danalogue (keyboards) and Betamax (drums) aim to “reconnect with the energy of the Lifeforce in hope of manifesting higher realities in new constructs.”
This sounds like it’s either one step away from a doomsday cult or a transcendental spiritual jazz group, along the lines of Impulse! forebears like John and Alice Coltrane or Pharoah Sanders.
However, while moments undeniably take inspiration from spiritual jazz, The Comet Is Coming doesn’t exactly use that template, and it’s best to listen to Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery without firm expectations. King Shabaka’s reed work focuses more on riffs and patterns, rather than deep soloing, putting it more in a rock/fusion framework, along the lines of a band like Tortoise (without sounding like Tortoise).
A rough cyclic theme is suggested by the opening and closing tracks, “Because the End is Really the Beginning” and “The Universe Wakes Up”, with the former offering Danalogue’s percolating synths, sometimes in melodic unity with King Shabaka’s sax, and Betamax’s invocational cymbals and tom rolls.
It’s an album that’s hard to pin down; a track like “Birth of Creation”, with syrupy, saturated sounds, artificial beats, a shadowy bass clarinet and a slow, soul-funk approach, is followed by “Summon the Fire”, sounding like sinister new wave music with its pulsing beats and distorted sax—this writer has a strange vision of the kids from the film The Breakfast Club bopping around to this song, but in a space gulag rather than school detention.
Although this writer was craving more melodic complexity at times, and a few moments were off-putting (such as the poem recitation from Kate Tempest in “Blood of the Past”), the album works more often than not, and it saves some of its best material for the end.
“Unity” flows with a soft touch with cosmic keyboards and gentle sax waves as the percussion presses forward, and “The Universe Wakes Up” is a sonic emergence, with King Shabaka’s sax both fluttering and scrambling atop a synth bed, suggesting brisk, morning warm-up exercises with optimism—it’s yet another day to try to unlock those deep mysteries.
Stereolab
Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements
(Duophonic/Warp)
The music business can sometimes sound like a con game, where fans are persuaded to buy the same album over and over, and it seems like we’ve come full circle. People replaced their vinyl records with CDs in the ‘80s and ‘90s, sold or gave away their CDs in favor of MP3s or streaming services, and now have decided that they want their vinyl records back.
However, there are some cases where this writer is happy to buy the same album over and over again (ask him why he owns four copies of Unrest’s imperial f.f.r.r.), and the new Stereolab remaster/reissue campaign, which offers expanded editions of its Elektra albums, is one of them.
The first two offerings are 1993’s Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements and 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet, released as 2-CD and 3-LP sets, each with a disc of rarities and demos. These reissues were mastered from the original half-inch tapes with an aim of improving “resolution, spatiality and depth,” in the words of Stereolab co-founder Tim Gane.
After doing A/B comparisons between the original 1993 edition of Transient... and this remastered edition, this writer is impressed by the remastering job, which avoids the typical “loudness war” pitfalls (where quality and dynamics are sacrificed for pure loudness) of many modern remasters.
It’s difficult to articulate the subtle differences, but some mid-range details are more apparent while, as a whole, the album feels more compelling and more powerful, especially when the songs build momentum into dense constructions.
The album itself is one of the high points of Stereolab’s eclectic history of appropriation throughout its 20-year career, which started in 1990.
Although it borrowed themes and styles liberally, Stereolab tracks were unmistakably Stereolab tracks, oozing a love for Moog analog synths and Vox and Farfisa organs, while vocalist Laetitia Sadier sang in English and French with her own lovely yet peculiar pronunciation.
If Stereolab has an epic, it’s the 18-minute “Jenny Ondioline”, one of the most gloriously entrancing experiences in its catalog; it takes rhythmic (“motorik” beat) and melodic inspiration from the German band NEU!—in particular, the track “Hallogallo”—and offers variations on a theme stitched together.
On the bonus disc, the demos are nice glimpses that uber-fans will appreciate, but the real gems are an alternate version of “Analogue Rock”, which is actually superior to the album version, and an intense mix of fan favorite “French Disco”. Until the next iteration of music technology lets us permanently carry music with us using CRISPR gene editing, this edition can rightfully be called the definitive edition.