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Rating:
It is a continuous flow with Stereolab, you can't stop to reflect, to understand what is happening, to linger on details. You just need to stay glued to the chair (better if tied) and listen.
There is no direction, no precise destination, the important thing is to run.
It's definitely the rhythmic aspect that initially strikes, with its inexorable progression, there is no escape, even your inner clock will start to keep time with the record. But trying to go deeper, completing the cardiothoracic operation, one discovers that within the thirteen tracks there is also much melody.
A record of rare completeness, probably their masterpiece. Even the tracklist is perfect, a detail not to be neglected, aimed at creating this continuum in the listener's head, with every song's end precisely and melodically intersecting with the next.
Extensive use of strings in the arrangements, though not invasively. We can't speak here of real orchestrations, but rather of punctual injections of melodic swiftness that open up to more free, airy scenarios, different from the usual.
Then let's think about the lyrics, most of which are an invitation to sociality, to being able to admit others' differences, without finding excuses to justify obtuse national logics. An invitation to look at the things we have in common rather than highlighting our differences. Stigmatizing, dividing are concepts that should be left aside. Here everything is united, compact, cohesive. "Whole" as the English would say.
Laetitia Sadier does a great job on the lyrics, enunciating every word throughout the album, the band follows her, enriching and coloring the vocal melodies with various instruments, gradually adding a piece, a brushstroke, to reach the complete work.
In this work, you can still feel the lamented Mary Hansen, the group's second very important voice (listen to "Slow Fast Hazel" to believe it), unfortunately deceased in 2002 due to a car accident. From there on, it will never be the same again, the mechanism is broken.
The more urgent electric bursts and the more atmospheric pauses that allow a few seconds of breathing are not lacking; the progressive march of "Metronomic Underground" and the finale of psychedelic velvet memory that could continue until the next record...
In my opinion, Emperor Tomato Ketchup stands as one of the most successful works of the Nineties, with its surgical perfection in balancing rhythmic inventiveness and melodic experimentation.
Stereolab are sound professionals, who in this album manage to translate into emotions, without remaining automatons of composition, for its own sake.
After all, it is known, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Metronomic Underground (07:54)
crazy, sturdy, a torpedo
crazy, brutal, a torpedo
who knows does not speak,
who speaks doas not know,
keep the mouth closed,
rounding the sharpness
untie the tangles,
to be vacuous,
to be infinite,
leap into the void
02 Cybele's Reverie (04:42)
mati�res sensuelles et sans suites
mati�res sensuelles et sans suites
l'enfance est plus sympathique
l'enfance apporte le magique
que faire quand on a tout fait
tout lu, tout bu, tout mang�
tout donn� en vrac et en d�tail
quand on a cri� sur tous les to'ts
pleur� et ris dans les villes et en campagne
l'enfance est plus authentique
le jardin au haut portique
les pierres, lea arbres, les murs racontent
(la maison, la maison d'autrefois, la maison la maison d'avenir)
et le silence (-trera) me p'n'trera
Cybele's Reverie (translation)
sensuous and incoherent matters
sensuous and incoherent matters
childhood is much nicer
childhood brings the magical
what to do when we've done everything
read everything, drank everything, ate everything
given everything loose or retail
when we have screamed on all the rooftops
cried and laughed in the cities and the country
childhood is more authentic
the garden with the high porch
the rocks, the trees, the walls narrate
(the house, the house of old, the house, the house of the future)
and silence will penetrate me.
03 Percolator (03:47)
J'ai tres tres peur ca c'est certain,
j'ai tres tres peur mais beaucoup moins
que tous les gens a cette table
de mon bateau ancre profond,
naviguer une direction
et aller loin.
Percolator
I am very very scared, that's for sure
I am very very scared but much less
than all the people at this table
of my deeply anchored boat
choose a direction
and go there
04 Les Yper-Sound (04:05)
you go in that team
i go on this team
divide everything
a flag or a number
make 'em opposites
so there's a reason
stigmatisation
ok now we can fight
divide everything
just put it all flat
justification
ok now you can fight
it is correct and reasonable
05 Spark Plug (02:29)
there is no sense in being interested in a child a group or in a society,
there is no sense if one cannot see in them before anything else,
the life it's capacity to founded upon itself
there is no sense in being interested in an ill person
or unwell a society if one cannot believe their readiness
and the capacity for proper recovery;
auto production organisation
06 OLV 26 (05:42)
Depuis le temps que c'est promis
nous irons tous au paradis-
c'est un appel sourd une promesse
aveuglante qui noie la conscience;
ce paradis me pèse, son poids
incommensurable abruti;
ancrée dans des strates profondes,
une pulsion des plus aliénantes;
telle une fausse libération,
un état de pure dépendance;
le paradis est derrière moi
dans le ventre de ma maman-
unchallenged myths, they lie heavy,
l'imaginaire is our worst enemy,
the paradise, what an idea !
a guardian still on duty.
Olv 26
Since the time that it's been promised
we would all be in paradise
it's a muted appeal, a blinding promise
that drowns conscience
this paradise weighs me down, its weight
immeasurably idiotic;
anchored in these deep layers,
the most alienating of urges,
such a false liberation,
a state of pure dependence;
the paradise is behind me
in my mum's belly-
unchallenged myths, they lie heavy,
the imaginary is our worst enemy,
the paradise, what an idea!
a guardian still on duty.
07 The Noise of Carpet (03:05)
i hate to see your broken face
this world would give you anything
as long as you will want to
as long as you will want to
i hate your state of hopelessness
and that vain articulateness
your loser type wreck wanna be
not a pretty sight really
in another world it'd be funny
i hate to see your broken face
a lazy life of fatal waste
of fashionable cynicism
the poison they want you to drink
oh no man that's too easy
oh no man that's too easy
we weren't talking bout happiness
apply your leading potential
to be useful to this planet
the world would give you anything
as long as you will want to
as long as you will want to
ba da ba...
08 Tomorrow Is Already Here (04:56)
Originally this set up was to serve society
Now the roles have been reversed
That want society to serve the institutions
Originally, serve society, serve society
Role have been reversed
Institutions, alienation
09 Emperor Tomato Ketchup (04:37)
les all閑s, les venues, labyrinthe, mais qu'y vois je?
la sortie, je la voie, elle est l⌦ㄲ㬱, on est peu,
bien trop peu, au travers, murs 閜ais je peux le faire,
faire tomber, les �?rans, du trompage, du trompage
s'accrochant au vide, ⌦ㄲ㬱 de la fum閑, les balles sont crev閑s, tout recommencer
que voudra-t-on voir, le rideau lever, le silence est d'or, je ne suis pas d'accord
ne pas faire d'effort, et beaucoup bailler, pouvoir s'閘ever, et vous saluer,
on n'est pas pigeon, peut-阾re bien des cons, la r�?lit⌦ㄲ㬸, de l'autre fa�?�n
10 Monstre Sacre (03:44)
hastened decrepit,
old shrunken apple,
ready for the pit,
i have let you go,
without forgiving
or understanding,
so now you are gone,
there could be nothing,
you live within me,
we communicate,
the light it creates and the tears it generates
bring the forgivness
don't let me down now
life half sapped away,
it took all that time,
sice you passed away,
to moisten the love
wa have forged the sought after union brought us together and the fullness,
the completeness, the infinite simplicity the world offers forgivness
11 Motoroller Scalatron (03:48)
what's society built on
what's society built on
what's society built on
what's society built on
it's built on, built on bluff,
built on bluff, built on trust,
what's society built on
it's built on, built on words,
built on words, built on work
responsible for what i say
responsible for what i hush
12 Slow Fast Hazel (03:53)
discovery of fire, america,
the invention of the wheel, steel work and democracy
philosophy, the soviets and other events in history of humanity
happened at a certain given moment in time
won't go back to the days couldn't even start a fire
won't go back to the days america'd not been discovered
the transition has been operated for ever
what had gone on before from what there'd been after
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