Laetitia Sadler, off of The Stereolabs, is doing a solo album this September. It's going to be called The Trip and - hey! - will be promoted by a trip round Europe playing bits and pieces from it:

10-14 Esch-Sur-Alzette, Luxembourg - Kulturfabrik
10-15 Utrecht, Netherlands - Ekko
10-16 Leipzig, Germany - Conne Island
10-17 Berlin, Germany - Hebbel Am Ufer 2
10-18 Krakow, Poland - Unsound Festival
10-19 Vienna, Austria - Rhiz
10-20 München, Germany - Feierwerk
10-21 Turin, Italy - Spazio 211
10-22 Rome, Italy - Init Club
10-23 Bologna, Italy - Lokomotiv
10-25 Barcelona, Spain - Sidecar
10-26 Zarautz, Spain - Gazteszena
10-30 Vendôme, France - Festival Rockomotives
10-31 Paris, France - Café de la Danse

(Tour dates culled from Pitchfork and thus all in October.)

Worrying news from the Stereolab camp:

Hiatus/Sabbatical/Pause/Intermission/Breather
Dear All,

As we recently made #51 with Emperor Tomato Ketchup in the Amazon 100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums of all Time we feel that our work is done for the moment.
We have had to cancel the last two shows that we were scheduled to play, apologies to all that had bought tickets, and there are no plans to record new tracks.
Duophonic are working on the release of Chemical Chords 2, we also have plans for a new Switched On and remastering of the back catalogue.
We are are all going to have a bit of a rest now after nearly 19 years and work on a few other projects.
The website will still be updated and disks released but there won't be any new Stereolab product for a while.

Cheerio
Pikey

This December, Stereolab will be double-checking how many plugs are available on the stages of these fine venues:

Dec 12th - The Pavilion, Cork
Dec 13th - Tripod, Dublin
Dec 14th - Black Box, Belfast
Dec 16th - Oran Mor, Glasgow
Dec 17th - Academy 3, Manchester
Dec 18th - Concorde 2, Brighton
Dec 19th - KOKO, London

[You might enjoy the Stereolab weekend]

Currently over on - and exclusive to - Wired's listening post blog, a rare 1996 Stereolab live video, the first in a run of 'lab exclusives that they've got in the run-up to the new record.

[Less exclusive, no less lovely: The Stereolab/McCathy weekend]

A new Stereolab album, Chemical Chords - their first in half a decade - is going to appear next month. This is Three Women, a taste of what it's going to be like:



[You might also enjoy The Stereolab weekend]

One of Too Pure's bigger hitters: Stereolab, with Cybele's Reverie.



[More Stereolab videos]
[Part of Too Pure's last hurrah]

Dean Wareham's book, A Rock & Roll Romance, reviewed for the New York Times by Liz Phair:

Former McCarthy - Stereolabber Tim Gane and ex-Sunday Correspondent writer Sean O'Hagan (we're teasing, Robin, honestly) out the High Llamas have come together to record a soundtrack for the French movie La Vie d'Artiste. It's out in France at the start of September, before leaking round the world following on from that.

Live on Later with Jools



Stereolab weekend

A 1997 live performance:



Stereolab weekend menu

UPDATE: Same performance, different source:

live at The Phoenix, March 14, 2006

The state of pop tv must be bad if we're starting to miss the contribution of The Word to Britain's musical cultural life.



Stereolab weekend

This weekend, some Stereolab stuff from around YouTube.

But, first, topped with a tell-tale ITV chart show caption, Tim Gane's great lost band, McCarthy, with Keep An Open Mind Or Else from 1989 (as far as we can tell, the only video of the band online - unless you know better than us?)



Buy:
Serene Velocity - a good 'start here' compilation
Oscillons from the Anti-Sun - 3CD, 1 DVD, comprehensive collection of most of the 'labs work
I Am A Wallet - McCarthy's 20 year-old "communist manifesto with tunes" (© Nicky Wire) reissued by the good people at Cherry Red earlier this year

More:
a nifty mini-menu of other Stereolab stuff will unfold here over the course of the Stereolab weekend
French Disko live on The Word
Pack Yr Romantic Mind live in 2006
Cybele's Reverie live in 1997
Les Ypers Sound live on Later

July 2008: Three Women

Very sad to come in to the office this morning to hear the news of the death of Mary Hansen of Stereolab. Amongst the many tributes to the multi-instrumentalist - another cyclist lost on the roads - we like ChartAttack's ten reasons why Mary was cool.