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Interview
by Jean-Jacques St Denis
10-12-2002
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| Stereolab's transient blues for a birdy |
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Resilement of splendour
In memoriam: Mary Hansen
Stereolab guitarist Mary Hansen (in red shirt), the 36-year-old core member of the band for over a decade, died in a cycling incident on Monday, 09 December. Australian-born Hansen was cycling in the City when it is believed she collided with a tipper truck. The fire brigade and air ambulance were called but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
A statement on Stereolab's official website reads: “It is with great regret and deep sadness that I must announce the death of Mary. Mary, vocalist and guitar player with Stereolab since 1992, died in a cycling accident in London on December 9, 2002. The suddenness of her death has shocked the band. Mary was a special person. Our thoughts are with her family and friends who will miss her greatly."
Alongside the band’s founders Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier, Hansen made Stereolab one of the most experimental and influential bands of the last ten years. Their mid-to-late 90s albums ‘Mars Audiac Quintet’, the eclectic ‘Emperor Tomato Ketchup’ and ‘Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night’ saw them move towards the mainstream in terms of commercial success in the UK. Their most recent release was a compilation of their BBC Radio sessions, released last October.
The band was formed in South London in late 1990 and soon afterward formed own label, Duophonic Super 45s. Debut ‘Peng!’ appeared in 1992, a platter of diverse influences: Velvet Underground, John Cage, Neu! and Pink Floyd. Hansen joined soon after the album’s release to add to crafting an eclectic ambient-boogie apparatus, its future undecided at the moment.
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In tribute to Mary Hansen we reprint a 1999 interview with Stereolab by our French correspondent, originally published in the long-defunct Best magazine. We hope it goes toward illuminating gears and wheels of the cult band’s sonic and mental manoeuvres.
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It is two years since Stereolab’s album ‘Dots And Loops’ was released and the only reason its supplant has been long in coming is due to the main protagonists of the band, Tim Gane (guitar, songwriter) and Laetitia Sadier (vocalist, lyricist) having a child, a boy named Alex. 14 months after the birth the band is ready to release the 7th LP, an opus of obscene beauty, ‘Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night’.
Perhaps a bit pretentiously named but – songs entitled ‘Italian Shoes/Continuum’, ‘Infinity Girl’ or ‘Caleidoscopic Gaze’ don’t make matters much clearer – this is a band making music that expresses its raison d’art by deploying irony, humour and surreal images to create something that really hasn’t got much to do with what is going on in the rest of the musical universe.
If we think that majority of music is being dumbed down, Stereolab are brave enough to attempt smartening it up! Their own standard, set on ‘Emperor Tomato Ketchup’ (1996), has been surpassed and this is light years away from the debut album ‘Peng!’ (1992). Tim being busy doing another interview we direct our discussion on music, beauty and culture with Laetitia. The two were the only members doing promotion and we never asked where Mary Hansen was, for instance.
“People talk about there being nothing to rebel against now but music, and culture in general, are being dumbed down and that is something I rebel against. I disagree with the idea that everything should be accessible to everybody. That’s not the way art works, that’s the way the business works. It looks like it is cool to be yob, to be ignorant, to be dumb... No apology but we don’t make music that confirms to such low common denominator...
- There is obviously no danger of that in your ranks; looking at the credits it appears that there is something complex going on during the creative process?
“Yes; Tim writes all the music but all the songs are in parts and that’s why there is a need for other people; we all know only our own parts because we don’t practice songs or do demos. And then there is John O’Rourke (worked with Faust, Sonic Youth), John McEntire (co-producers of their two previous records), Sean O’Hagan (once a full-time member but now fronting his own High Llamas), and then the band members. Plus, whoever is there... I’d say that our music is sculpted.”
(She and Hansen returned the favour to O’Hagan by singing vocals on ‘Snowbug’.)
- What frightens you?
“Not to be in a control of our own career and there are already a lot of things that are out of our control. But, as long as we have the creative freedom, it is okay. Our responsibility is to really care about the quality of music we put out. People like us for that and we have to respect that.”
- You did let your music be used in for TV commercials, Volvo and Volkswagen cars; weren’t you apprehensive about your credibility?
“No... They were cool ads, well I never saw the Volvo one, but was told so... These are cool products and there was no problem. Another reason was that we had been asked to many times to provide music, for different credit card companies, McDonald, but we always turned them down.”
“We’d prefer to be involved with film music. The work wouldn’t be difficult in itself but the experience of our friends, Tortoise, Mars On Mars, High Llamas, taught us that it could be hell! Guys are constantly on your back because it is their movie with a big-ish budget. When we ask people to work with us we do it because we respect and trust them and don’t stand looking over their shoulders. I don’t think we can work under pressure, we need to have time.”
- Your titles have always been intriguing; do you spend long time labouring over them?
“Our titles are extremely ridiculous, some people say... Our titles usually have a very wide correlation to the songs and they are usually a compromise. Tim’s ideas are completely out-there and I have to restrain him. It’s not that I’m more down-to-earth but you need both to create something specific... If music is out-there, lyrics are abstract and the titles out-there, what is the weight, where is the anchor? I also swap titles around, like ‘The Emergency Kisses’, that used to be another song and now it is a love song.”
“And the title of this album, it is supposed to be a description of the record and the place of the band at the time of making it.”
- One has impression that a certain philosophy of aesthetics is at work here; has that been defined at the very beginning?
“We never sat down and discussed it but it simply comes from what is important to Tim and that is that music is melodic, that uses chord changes that haven’t been heard before, and very strange tempos; also creating a hybrid of two different and opposing elements that are individually beautiful but nobody has ever combined them before. For instance, metronomic Neu! and ultra-melodic Beach Boys. There was a programme on television recently about Captain Beafheart and he was doing the same, creating his own hybrids. It is as simple as that, confronting two opposing elements and creating a different whole.”
“And, the strangest thing is that Tim started by listening to Throbbing Gristle, an art band that was into abstract noise, deconstructional songs and complete anarchists in musical terms. At the same time he’d be into something really romantic and beautiful, classical. And he wanted to combine the two.”
- To what purpose? Is getting attention enough for an artist?
“No, that’s only the beginning, you have to retain attention! What you want to do through art is to be understood and have goals, which you are achieving. Then, if you encourage (other) people to be more creative, be less afraid, be more critical... I think our strange titles are part of that, not being specific, no being obvious, having a bit of deviation, a little twist... I’m getting abstract a bit. But, that’s what we want, to move people, allow them to see a bit of light, a new thing, discover something in this direction rather than in that one.”
- You really believe in the power of music?
“I do... When I see how lives are structured, from school to jobs, there is little chance to move out of that, to break out and become free. But it is possible because music is the means to achieve that. I don’t think this is idealistic, it is a fact. But not just anybody, just any artist, but when you see a band that really means and really lives what they are doing, it is different, energetic, important. A lousy band will make you wanna die but the right band will wanna make you live! That’s exciting...”
“When you see a great band it connects with you and it has an incredible imprint. When you connect with people you can get a vibe (of understanding) from public... ”
While Laetitia starts another interview and reporter hangs around the office to score more freebies, Tim comes out of his room and I ask him whether he shares his other-half’s opinion, expressed in a song ’Laisser-Faire’, that the western world is becoming more right wing?
“Yes, as it is... It is enough to observe what NATO is doing: yesterday - Kosovo, today - East Timor (and Afghanistan), tomorrow - …” (Iraq)
That led conversation into armaments, then star-war systems and finally to ‘Star Trek’ tele-series. But, that is another story of two ‘Trekkers’; Tim loves the original, the1960s series, by the way.
Jean-Jacques St Denis
10-12-2002
Mary Hansen’s funeral was held in Maryborough, Queensland in her native Australia on 20 December 2002.
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