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Records: Uilab's FiresBy Jeff Sprague Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier often earns comparisons to mysterious pop enchantresses like Nico, but I don't think she's ever quite perfected that marvelous recipe of melodic beauty and lyrical charm. I've crafted wild theories concerning her seeming indifference to pop's vocal sorcery. One involved Stereolab guitarist Tim Gane, and some strange charms around his neck. Later, I began to think Menudo was the mastermind behind Sadier, carefully instructing her to disrupt melodies by switching languages. More recently, I credited her bland vocals to the strain of playing mouthpiece to a band that simultaneously wants to be krautrock, novelty pop, and political bubblegum.Perhaps looking for a new setting in which to stretch out, Sadier collaborated with New York City trio, Ui, on some tracks now compiled on the Fires EP. Ui brings dueling bass funk and urgent drum grooves that set the rumps a-shakin' among the stoic indie hipsters. Ui, however, is not the hero that frees Sadier from her vocal ennui. Contemporary music guru Brian Eno plays that part by offering up his lovely tune "St. Elmo's Fire." The Ui boys lay infectious gurgling basses and thunderous drum textures within Eno's compositional framework. Into this cavernous pop landscape descends Sadier, delivering each lyric with nightingale elegance. Under the command of Sadier's aloof intonation, the chorus implores us to scrap pop's emotional banality and merely bask in the enchanting glow of her "blue August moon." When the ecstasy of this moment subsides, explore the remaining five tracks molded by this great collaboration. Various factions of the bunch work the Eno wonder-tune into three remixes that range from percussive mayhem to chilling ambient explorations. Perplexing and disjointed perhaps, but don't forget that this all took place in that sad indie world, where marginalizing pop is the dogma that too often reigns supreme. (Bingo)
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