Elektra / Wea
1999
Cobra And Phases
About This Album
Stereolab took an unprecedented two years between 1997's Dots & Loops and 1999's Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, as they tended to personal matters. For a band that churned out limited-edition singles and EPs, along with an annual album, between 1992 and 1997, complete silence was a complete change of pace, but they happened to pick a good time to go into seclusion. During those two years, Stereolab's brand of sophisticated, experimental post-rock didn't evolve too much, even as their peers, colleagues, and collaborators tried other things: Tortoise got jazzier with TNT, Jim O'Rourke got irresistibly lush and complex with Bad Timing and Eureka, while the High Llamas fleshed out Sean O'Hagan's Beach Boys fetish with 'Lab highlights on Cold and Bouncy. With the exception of O'Rourke, who abandoned Gastr Del Sol's minimalism for grandiosity, they all offered slight expansions of what they did before instead of making great progress. Since each Stereolab album has offered a significant progression from the next, it would have been fair to assume that when they returned with Cobra, it would have been a leap forward, especially since it was co-produced with Tortoise's John McEntire and O'Rourke.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11)

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