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 Click for music events Death by Stereo Berlin’s Stereo Total and its quirky pop aesthetic
Stereo Total has always resisted easy categorization. Since the duo’s debut album "Oh Ah!" dropped in 1995, it’s attracted fans with its own unique blend of lo-fi electronica, 1960s French pop and raucous garage rock, rounded out with multilingual lyrics and a colorful choice of cover songs to boot. "The music is a kind of mixture of French chanson and German minimalism," explains Françoise Cactus, drummer and main vocalist for the eclectic pair. She, along with partner Brezel Göring, have been exploring this type of trans-European sound for over a decade now, and their experience shows on their latest record, "Paris< >Berlin," released here in the States August 21 on Kill Rock Stars.
"We are living in this city Berlin where everyone is making electro music, but everyone is using the same sounds," Cactus laments. "[It's] boring after awhile." Yet even after seven studio albums, it'd be difficult to level the same type of criticism at Cactus' own band. For one thing, the sound is so distinctive that it's hard to imagine other bands successfully imitating it. Furthermore, all that time making music has given the European duo some insight into what works and what doesn't—and as a result, "Paris< >Berlin" might be its most consistent set of songs to date. The album kicks off with vibrant opener "Miss Rébellion des Hormones," and moving through the rest of the fourteen cuts, it's clear that the group's creativity and vivacity are out in full force. On standouts like "Plastic" and "Ta Voix au Téléphone," the hooks are so well-honed that it's almost impossible to resist singing along—even when the lyrics aren't exactly comprehendible. The entire album benefits from a "live" approach that Cactus and Göring decided upon recording, adding extra power to the rockier parts of their musical equation without sacrificing any of their quirky pop aesthetic. So where occasionally parts of previous albums tended to sound a bit sterile, "Paris< >Berlin" recaptures a lot of the freshness not heard since the band's early days of recording.
"The way it's produced is different, the way we recorded it was kind of fast and spontaneous," Cactus explains. "We were like one-two-three and then we record, [and] we tried not to put effects on the instruments, we wanted to keep it more natural." That approach, combined with the all-around strength of the new material, has allowed Stereo Total to keep a firm grasp on its unique sound, while fending off the stagnancy that all too often arises at this point in a band's career.
Another factor in the group's latest success stems from an unlikely source—the loss of band members. Cactus and Göring first started playing together in 1993, and originally performed as a duo, but by the time they started recording a year later, the band's lineup had already expanded. Over the next decade members would continually fluctuate, and even 2005's "Do the Bambi," which was created predominantly by Cactus and Göring, still featured guest vocalist Da Hawnay Troof, who joined the group on its U.S. tour. But "Paris< >Berlin" finds Stereo Total returning to its core roots, and the sound is all the better for it.
"I like it when there are just the two of us," admits Cactus. "I think it's better… more original." Sunnier, too, as fate would have it—"It's less dark than ‘Do the Bambi,’" she explains. And while you'd probably never hear any of Stereo Total's discography blasting out of the speakers at Neo, "Paris< >Berlin" does come off as a bit more playful than usual, even in the face of the witty humor that so characteristically marks the band’s back catalogue. Songs like "Komplex mit dem Sex" and "Baby Revolution" incorporate sex and politics while sidestepping all the usual pitfalls that often occur when bands try to be self-consciously clever or intellectual.
And of course, in true Stereo Total form, the new album is not without its requisite covers—in this case, a rollicking take on Serge Gainsbourg's "Relax Baby Be Cool," as well as their own versions of the lesser-known Hermann Orgie's "Moderne Musik" and Nicolas Ekla's "Mehr Licht." What's prompted the group to cover everything from this to Salt 'n' Pepa to the Beatles to KC and the Sunshine Band and Pizzicato Five? "Mostly, we just take the songs we like and play them completely differently," Cactus confesses. "[We create] minimalistic, disco-groovy stuff."
Cactus anticipates the duo's upcoming tour, which allows her to visit friends she has in cities across the globe. "It seems to be a small world, maybe we should go play on the moon or something," she remarks with a laugh. Yet Chicago still stands out from the competition—but not necessarily in the best of ways. "I have a really strange memory of a girl who took me back to the hotel [on a previous trip]," Cactus recalls. "She said 'I'm so high I have to get me some hamburgers!' and so she took me for the first time to this thing called a White Castle and she said in the microphone 'I want ten hamburgers!'"
Stereo Total plays August 31 at Abbey Pub, 3420 West Grace, (773)478-4408, at 9pm. $15.
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