Latest news with #Gane
New Statesman
6 days ago
- Business
- New Statesman
The lost futures of Stereolab
Photo by Joe Dilworth Nikolai Kondratiev was born in Russia in 1892. An influential theorist of the New Economic Policy under Lenin, in the 1920s he pioneered the idea that would define his posthumous reputation. Capitalist economies, he argued, underwent predictable cycles of about 50 years' growth followed by stagnation. In 1938, Kondratiev fell out of favour and was executed under Stalin's Great Purge. But after his death, his theory found acclaim in the West, memorialised as 'supercycles', or the Kondratiev wave. One small ripple from this theoretical legacy came in the summer of 1994, on the fringes of the British Top 40 singles chart. A basic schooling on the Kondratiev wave could be found in the lyrics of 'Ping Pong' by the avant-pop band Stereolab, a catchy, three-minute single sung in French-accented English, and built around sultry electric organ and sparkling, understated guitars. The release peaked at 45, mounting no threat to that week's imperial Wet Wet Wet chart-topper. From the vantage of the mid 2020s, perhaps Nineties guitar bands require their own theory of stagnation and growth. After long absences, this summer sees a new album by Pulp and the live return of Oasis (the latter a group impelled by very different economic theories). At a quieter volume in the public consciousness, we now have a largely unexpected new album by Stereolab, the long-running project of onetime romantic partners Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier. Stereolab burst from the ruins of Eighties indie. Ilford-born Gane – a teenage devotee of experimental bands like Throbbing Gristle – was the guitarist in McCarthy, a badge-wearing socialist outfit whose verbose and accusatory songs included 'We Are All Bourgeois Now' and 'Should the Bible Be Banned'. At a 1988 Paris show, Gane met, and quickly began a relationship with, a McCarthy fan: Lætitia Sadier. Born in 1968, Sadier grew up in the eastern suburbs of Paris, interrupted by long stays in the US following her father's corporate job. Sadier briefly joined McCarthy before the band split in 1990. The pair then moved to south London, signed on to the dole, and plotted an entirely new project. By the Nineties, rock had amassed so much past that would-be musicians could pick a spot in virtually any niche of its history, and burrow there for a whole career. Stereolab's early releases were in thrall to the Seventies Düsseldorf duo Neu! and their propulsive, defiantly minimalist 4/4 beat. A rotating cast of musicians came and went around an unchanging nucleus of Gane, Sadier and the Australian guitarist Mary Hansen, whose bright, volleying harmonies with Sadier were the emotional centre of the band's sound. What set them apart was their politics. Gane wrote – and largely produced – the music, leaving lyrics entirely to Sadier. Delivered in a conversational but strident voice, Sadier sounded like a compelling sociology lecturer suddenly taking flight. On the single 'French Disko', which was performed on late-night TV's The Word, Sadier called for acts of 'rebellious solidarity' before a chorus of 'La Résistance!' But her lyrics tended towards affirmation rather than polemic. There was 'Ping Pong', with its Kondratiev chorus, and the playful 'Wow and Flutter', which does not on first listen sound as though it is questioning the supremacy of the IBM and US imperialism, but somehow pulls it off. In interviews, her political declarations were measured and playful, pondering to Melody Maker in 1993 what exactly to do about 'people like John Major' come the revolution. ('Do we kill them? Do we brainwash them? Do we get them to mop the streets?… That's a hell of a responsibility.') Through punk, the postwar Situationist International – a revolutionary Marxist alliance of artists and intellectuals – for a time held an outsized influence on pop music. You could detect their influence in Stereolab's fusing of anti-capitalist lyrics to the sounds of American consumerism, with their sincere adoption of Sixties bubblegum pop, easy listening and elevator Muzak. In the Eighties and Nineties, leftist bands as varying as the Style Council and the Manic Street Preachers practised entryism, smuggling leftist ideals through catchy pop. That was not Stereolab. 'I would go so far as to say we were avoiding going overground,' Sadier told the New York Times in 2019. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Instead, Stereolab protected their independence – releasing on their own Duophonic imprint – and got better. Between 1996 and 1999, Stereolab came good on the critic Simon Reynolds's declaration of the band as part of the 'post-rock' wave – meaning guitar bands who had been energised by the arrival of hip-hop and dance music. Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Dots and Loops and the sprawling Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, released consecutively, were among the finest alternative albums of the 1990s, coming at the exact moment Britpop ran out of road. Suddenly, this DIY indie project encompassed glitchy German techno, rhythmic Brazilian jazz, sleek and severe 20th-century minimalism and a collagist approach that beat hip-hop samplers at their own game (later, rap producers including J Dilla, Tyler, The Creator, and Pharrell Williams would sample and praise specifically this era of the band). Playful and psychedelic, Stereolab almost resolved political music's central dilemma – that anyone buying the object probably agrees with you already – by flooding their work with what the critic Mark Sinker dubbed 'portals', meaning references to counter-cultural history from filmmaker Stan Brakhage to synth pioneer Wendy Carlos. This couldn't last. Cobra and Phases… received a cruel, attention-seeking 0/10 review from the NME, terming them 'culturally pointless'. It was a harbinger of more than just a casually cruel media culture, proving 2000s indie rock and its skinny-jeans-wearing acolytes would revive just about anything but an interest in politics. And far worse, Stereolab were struck by tragedy. In 2002, Mary Hansen was killed in a traffic accident aged 36. Gane and Sadier separated, and a grief-stricken band lost their zeal. Stereolab's hiatus in 2009 barely caused a ripple. Instant Holograms on Metal Film is the first new Stereolab studio album since 2008's Chemical Chords. After reforming for what appeared to be a slightly awkward, financially necessitated reunion in 2019, something seemed to stick: Stereolab have toured whenever possible since. The first sounds on Instant Holograms are one minute of silvery, arpeggiated synthesizers, introducing the record like some long-lost Eighties television ident. 'Aerial Troubles', the first full-length song on the album, opens with Sadier's declaration – her voice deeper and richer – that 'the numbing is not/it is not working any more'. This is an album uniquely concerned with consumption, greed ('an unfillable hole, insatiable') and 'dying modernity'. Stereolab are back, and they've never sounded so disappointed. On first listen, it surprises that the bubblegum colours Stereolab painted in during the Nineties have been drained to a slightly more parched canvas. On repeat listens, this is to the album's benefit. If Instant Holograms is largely a retread of former Stereolab sounds – and it is – what is different and manages to convince, is its more downcast mood. 'Ego skyscraper, erect and collapsible', mourns Sadier on the mid-tempo, gently exploratory 'Immortal Hands', 'nihilistic and vulgar'. More than any other Stereolab release, Instant Holograms does not leave the subject of life under capitalism. The strange romantic songs or surreal asides that were once part of the band's coalition are this time absent. This could all be a bit much, but what separates Sadier from a bad case of what we might call the 'Ian Browns' (specifically the one-time Stone Roses frontman's dire Covid-sceptic barkings about 'masonic lockdowns' and '5G radiation') is the glacial, cool manner in which she delivers them. It is also the way that the music appears to offer solutions, glimpses of possibility. Take that track: what begins as a downcast plea suddenly fizzes into mutant disco, bursting bright with horns and recalling their most expansive material on the classic Dots and Loops. Ditto the track 'Vermona F Transistor', in which – against a lovely, woozy Tim Gane guitar line – Sadier's phrases begin to suddenly drown in bubbling, electronic vocal effects, rendering them absurd, suggesting their own slipperiness. Stereolab broke out at a time when – even for experimentally minded Marxists – the mood was playful and the forecast optimistic. Putting it mildly, this is not the case today. Instant Holograms will not command much of the same audience as Oasis's return, but the continuing appeal of both is more similar than either would admit: those listening to Stereolab will be hoping to set the clock back to half-past-the-Nineties as much as those in bucket hats at Heaton Park. But on the final song 'If You Remember I Forgot How to Dream Pt 2', Sadier closes with a rebuke to the numbing that featured earlier in the album, emphasising the 'power to choose' and the 'courage to heal'. On Instant Holograms, Stereolab find new ways to explore and analyse the disappointing world around them. Useful lessons, some might say. 'Instant Holograms on Metal Film' by Stereolab is out now on Warp Records [See also: Lorde's Brat moment] Related
Winnipeg Free Press
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Martha and the Muffins call for Poilievre to stop using ‘Echo Beach' at rallies
TORONTO – The Toronto band Martha and the Muffins is calling on Pierre Poilievre to stop using 'Echo Beach' at his campaign rallies without their authorization. Members of the group say they've been told the Conservative Party of Canada has been playing their 1980 new wave hit at some campaign events despite the musicians asking them to stop last month. Representatives for the Conservative party did not respond to a request for comment. Band member Mark Gane says he first learned Poilievre's campaign had used 'Echo Beach' after reading a story in a local Sudbury newspaper earlier this year. He says his manager then sent a cease and desist request to the Conservative party. Since then, he says fans in other parts of the country have told him they've heard the song played at campaign rallies. Gane says he finds it 'disrespectful' that the Conservative party didn't honour the band's request and worries some Canadians may assume they support their policies. 'We don't want to be associated by our work in any shape or form with them,' he told The Canadian Press on Monday, election day. Martha and the Muffins issued a statement saying they did not endorse or support the use of their music at political events. ''Echo Beach' remains a song about escapism, imagination, and personal expression — not a soundtrack for partisan political campaigns,' it said in part. 'Martha and the Muffins demand that Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party immediately cease the use of their music.' During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Gane said the unauthorized use of artists' songs at political events highlights a broader disregard for the rights of musicians that stretches beyond election day. 'It seems to be an ongoing problem,' he said, pointing to Neil Young, who filed and then dropped a lawsuit against now-U.S. President Donald Trump over music at rallies for Trump's failed 2020 presidential bid. 'This is one of many instances where a political party thinks they can just grab somebody's copyrighted material, in this case being a song, and just (use) it for their own political ends.' He said Canadian music organizations, in particular the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), should put greater efforts into policing the unauthorized use of music at campaign rallies. This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2025.
BBC News
06-02-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Diabetes: Record type 2 numbers raise fears of 'hidden crisis'
One in five adults in Wales is living with diabetes or prediabetes, new data 226,000 people have diabetes in Wales, while another estimated 269,000 people have prediabetes, which, left untreated, can develop into type 2 UK, which released the figures, said the figures highlighted a "hidden health crisis" and called on the Welsh government to tackle the crisis "head-on".The Welsh government said they were very concerned about the rising levels and that they have invested £1m a year to support a prevention programme as part of a 10-year strategy. About 90% of people who are living with diabetes in Wales are living with type 2 diabetes, Rachel Burr, national director for Diabetes UK Cymru, told BBC Radio Wales 2 diabetes has a wide variety of causes including age, ethnicity and family history, but one of the leading risk factors is living with to a person's lifestyle and support to help delay or prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes is key, Ms Burr said, as well as treatment once diagnosed with the 1 diabetes, a lifelong condition which cannot be prevented and for which there is no cure, affects 8% of people in Wales. About 60,000 people are also living with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, Ms Burr Gane, co-founder Cwmbach diabetic support group in Rhondda Cynon Taf, also said people with diabetes were often not aware of the care they should be receiving."We need to catch people with all kinds of diabetes as early as possible," Ms Gane said."I can't stress enough the importance of peer support. You really do need to be able to chat to some people who have actually gone through what you're going through," she Gane said more support was also needed in the community to help people eat healthily."You need to know the things you can eat and to make healthy choices. "But that is dependent on what money comes in. We have people here who have to go to food banks," she added that in areas of deprivation such as the Cynon Valley where she works, the prevalence of diabetes was high, making the need for support in the community even higher. This could include cooking sessions or advice on how to eat healthily on a budget, she said."If you haven't got much money, life is not so easy to make the healthiest of choices," she said. Frightening rise in prevalence Ms Burr said the rise of prevalence of diabetes was "really quite frightening at the moment"."For people living with diabetes, it's a life-changing thing. It affects they day-to day life all the time," said Ms Burr."Diabetes can go on to cause some really quite horrible complications; things like heart attacks, like strokes, kidney disease, sight loss," she charity has written an open letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Jeremy Miles, calling on the Welsh government to "tackle this crisis head-on".It also wants investment in care in order to help prevent complications and the provision of annual diabetes checks.A focus on improving the food environment in Wales, which the government is already tackling through the Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales strategy, was crucial, Ms Burr said."We need to urgently find those people who are unaware that they are living with diabetes or type 2 diabetes, making sure they are getting the right support at the earliest opportunity."
