Cobra & Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

Submitted by Graham Dawson on 16 February 2013 - 10:27pm

Cover:

Artist:

Stereolab

album-ID:

a_64

Nationality:

Year:

1 999

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Fuses*People Do It All the Time*The Free Design*Blips, Drips and Strips*Italian Shoes Continuum*Infinity Girl*The Spiracles*Op Hop Detonation*Puncture in the Radax Permutation*Velvet Water*Blue Milk*Caleidoscopic Gaze*Strobo Acceleration*The Emergency Kisses*Come and Play in the Milky Night

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_24

Now-num:

Spotify-URL:

1hwqJ39DBV9G1LSvcsrISy

Grooveshark-URL:

Cobra+And+Phases+Group+Play+Voltage+In+The+Milky+Night/1093649

Short-title:

cobra

nominator-ID:

u_23

Meeting-date:

Friday, 20 November 2009

MusicBrainz-URL:

48834f45-dfb1-3e67-b456-1b233e3380c4

Wikipedia-URL:

Cobra_and_Phases_Group_Play_Voltage_in_the_Milky_Night

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Stereolab-Cobra-And-Phases-Group-Play-Voltage-In-The-Milky-Night/master/30676

Allmusic-URL:

cobra-and-phases-group-play-voltage-in-the-milky-night-mw0000245

guest-list data

108

109

117

75

reviewed by

Graham Dawson

Playing in the milky night

2-3-5-6-12-15

It's a bit too long but very lovely in parts. Here, the 'lab have ditched the kraut rock influence of their early days and bought in a bit of jazz. I find this one works best either through headphones whilst lying in the milky night, or as background music in a turn of the century groovy bar whilst playing in the milky night.
73

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

I'll give you a 'puncture in the radax permutation' young man

1-5-9-11-12

3-4

Whenever I hear something about Stereolab, either in praise of them or even critical of them, they always come across like the sort of band I would really enjoy and get excited about, but when I get around to listening to them I am usually slightly underwhelmed.

You've got to say that in places they are a bit irritating and if you're not in the mood the whole experience can be quite painful, especially when one is persevering through an over-long album like this one. There is a certain plinky-plonkyness to their sound that moves them into an easy-listening, musak direction – this could be quirkily amusing if you were convinced they were being ironic about it. I think it's down to keyboard notes all at the same level (like on non touch sensitive keyboards), lots of short notes (including Zappa-esque xylophone lines) and jazzy-tinged freeform melodies. Even as I try to diss them my description of their sound does seem like it could be quite interesting. And to be fair there are some interesting features – there are great pulsed keyboard noises in Italian Shoes Continuum, Fuses, has mad, scatty strangled sax noises over an uptempo jazzy drum sound and Blue Milk ebbs and flows with a relentless hypnotic strum and some nice industrial / electronic washes. This is certainly ambitious stuff – with a variety of sounds and approaches throughout, and often within the same song. Hmmm, sounds like the sort of band I would really enjoy…

Even after a number of plays I do still find it difficult to decide if any particular track is any good or not and I came into the loppylug meeting expecting to agree with both the praise and the criticism of them. The fact that I did proves everything and nothing.
67

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

2-11

I like the Stereolab sound overall, which I suppose is a sound you either love or tolerate, and this album certainly is typical of them but perhaps a little more varied than some. However it does still leave me with that 'samey' feeling and I don't feel inspired to play it often.

Thank goodness for 'Blue Milk' which is a detour into something more hypnotic and really makes me listen. The album could have ended there for me, it's just too much of the same after that.
60

reviewed by

Richard Norbury

Nice sound and songs. Not really going anywhere special and too dull for me.

Cobra & Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

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