It can feel like giddy boosterism to claim that a dormant band is back and better than ever. But it’s true of the Anglo-French pop theorists Stereolab, who were in rousing and eloquent form at their final gig of 2025, in the band’s formative south London. You wouldn’t want to describe a group this unorthodox as slick, exactly. But this iteration of Stereolab sounds louder and groovier than their reputation as slightly aloof, cult darlings would warrant.
Miss Modular, from their 1997 album Dots and Loops, has become emphatically funky. Latter-day members Joseph Watson (keyboards since 2004) and bassist Xavier Muñoz (in the touring lineup since 2019) add penetrating depths to the band’s mutable but unmistakable sound. Time signatures whip past at a dazzling rate, while psychedelic digressions fall back into melodic line at the command of guitarist Tim Gane or singer Laetitia Sadier.
Founded by the pair in 1990 as a guitar band with recherche influences, Stereolab disbanded around 2009 after nine sui generis studio albums and a slew of compilations of burbling, cinematic tunes dusted with German motorik rhythms, Brazilian jazz inflections and elements of French 60s pop. They coped with the loss of one multi-instrumentalist singer, Mary Hansen, who died in 2002, and the dissolution of the romantic relationship between their two creative principals, Gane and Sadier.
Fiercely intellectual, but breezy with it, Stereolab have always been a bande à part. Their shimmying, retro-futurist sound smuggles in lyrics concerning critical theory and social critique. The group have been feted by other musicians – Pharrell Williams is a fan – and sampled by a long list of hip-hop artists across the generations, including the late Mac Miller. Tyler, the Creator also featured Sadier alongside Frank Ocean on a 2013 track. This gig plays host to multiple age groups.
From the first fizz of synth to the noise of the encore, the band more than live up to their myth
Reunited since 2019, the band have played what you might loosely term “the hits’” on previous tours. Now they are airing their first album in 15 years, Instant Holograms on Metal Film, which was released in May. As with Pulp – another outfit with an aesthetically distinct offering – Stereolab’s resurrection has been a resounding creative success. Recorded in Chicago and produced by Cooper Crain of the band Bitchin’ Bajas, the album took Stereolab back to a city and a scene they know well. In the 90s, their producers were storied Chicago left-field musicians Jim O’Rourke and John McEntire (of the band Tortoise, another of 2025’s great returnees).
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The horns on Instant Holograms were played by Windy City jazz mainstay Ben LaMar Gay, who sadly has not made the trip to Brixton. But one of tonight’s fabulous surprises is how often Sadier whips out a trombone for understated solos, which offer texture more than showboating (she also plays upside-down right-handed guitar). There is a guest though: Marie Merlet, from Sadier’s former band Monade, on flute and backing vocals.
The performance suggests a few things have come full circle. It is the rowdier overspill from the band’s more prestigious, sold-out Royal Festival Hall show a few weeks ago. If dancing is not exactly easy in the Electric Brixton’s packed space, there has rarely been a place better named to host a gig by these space-age musicians. From the first fizz of synth that opens Aerial Troubles, to the noise of the encore, Cybele’s Reverie, Stereolab more than live up to their myth.
“This is a song about the programs that run our heads, our subconscious and our nervous systems, and the gods we believe without questioning,” says Sadier, introducing Vermona F Transistor, a new track that squelches and swings. “I am the creator of this reality,” croons Sadier. “We stand to attention/ To ordained narrations/ That support disunion.” In setting themselves up as distinct from other bands, Stereolab can seem forbidding. But their between-song messages emphasise hope and warmth. “Capitalism is a wound,” offers Sadier, introducing Melodie Is a Wound, another one from Instant Holograms. “Fascism is a wound. Neoliberalism is a wound,” she continues. “But as a wound it can heal.”
On record, the track encapsulates the band’s exquisitely compressed discipline. Live, the song’s appeal to the hips and the head is amplified, as its percolating rhythms are performed with increasing verve. The night turns into a dazzling workout, restating the band’s appeal with no little swagger.
Photograph by Andy Hall/The Observer