Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup (2LP) [DUOPHONIC]

Why you'll love it

This Duophonic and Warp reissue spreads the remastered album across a 2LP set pressed in the EU. Spin named it the 46th best album of the 1990s, Pitchfork put it at 51, and it sits in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Remastered
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Writer's block has produced some odd cures, and Stereolab's was a tribute album. Stuck for a year, Tim Gane started covering the Godz' "ABC," looped four notes of it, and suddenly had the seed of "Percolator" and a whole new way of working: songs built on loops rather than drones, closer to hip hop and electronica than to the motorik grind of earlier records.

The band split the sessions between John McEntire in Chicago and Paul Tipler in London, and the results are layered and bright. "Metronomic Underground" rides a hypnotic groove, "Cybele's Reverie" is a swooning bit of French pop with strings, and "The Noise of Carpet" kicks harder than anything else here. Laetitia Sadier's vocals glide through it all, and the album borrows its name from Shūji Terayama's 1971 experimental film.

It became a college radio hit in the States and is still the record people point to when they explain Stereolab to a friend. The sleeve, for the record, nicks its design from a 1964 recording of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, which is as close as most of us will get to owning one.

Also at Kops: more Stereolab on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Duophonic / Warp (cat# D-UHF-D11RT), a reissue of the 1996 album.