With a musical foundation in German progressive rock and political roots in the playful tradition of the Situationists, Stereolab is as avant-garde as they come.
Other groups with the same antecedents might be difficult or at least challenging, but Stereolab is pure pop. In Stereolab's enigmatic sonic reality, John Cage sports flares at the airport lounge and Karl Marx speaks with the dulcet tones of a French chanteuse.
This latest release, "Sound-Dust," is in the same vein. But the "groop," as they call themselves, and producers Jim O'Rourke (guitar virtuoso) and John McIntire (Tortoise member and producer of the last three Stereolab efforts) have provided enough tweaks to maintain Stereolab's ambiguity while pushing the creative edge.
There is an urgent yet somber quality to some of the songs. Most are in a minor chord and the instrumentation is intricate, almost polyphonic, with eccentric horn and flute flourishes. At the same time, the fluffy '60s grooviness that became a Stereolab hallmark on the last few albums has been inflated to almost Partridge Family proportions. Think of Pizzicato Five crossed with "Switched on Bach" and the slightest hint of Motown.
In other hands, this might become a huge horrible muddle, but Stereolab is used to romping across genres and adept at merging the most unlikely bits of musical history into a pleasurable pop drone.