Pulse Of The Early Brain shines a light on Stereolab's arty, adventurous side
Oozing with ambient grooves and catchy harmonies, the fifth volume of rarities from the avant-pop quintet calls back to their space-age prime

Physical products—or perhaps more specifically, physical formats—weigh heavily in Stereolab’s career, which perhaps is appropriate for a band who lifted their very name from a line of records Vanguard released during the golden age of vinyl. Stereolab’s love of records manifested in how they seemed constitutionally unable to resist an opportunity to release music on any manner of arcane formats. Split singles, limited edition EPs, giveaway flexi discs, Japanese bonus tracks, limited edition soundtracks to art installations—there doesn’t seem to be a format the group hasn’t explored.
Fortunately, their embrace of records extends to compilations, as they’ve never shied away from collecting all these stray tracks on a series they called Switched On. Pulse Of The Early Brain is the fifth installment of Switched On, released a full 30 years after the inaugural volume’s appearance in 1992. That was a busy year for the group, with the founding members Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier adding drummer Andy Ramsay and vocalist/utility player Mary Hansen shortly after the release of their debut album Peng!. The new members were featured on Low Fi, an EP released in the wake of the original Switched On but which somehow remained orphaned until Pulse Of The Early Brain.
Low Fi is the anchor on Pulse of the Early Brain (Switched On, Volume 5)—the rarity used to lure die-hard collectors but also the center of gravity for the rest of the record. As the title suggests, Low Fi captures Stereolab at their noisy, primitive early peak, churning out a thick cluster of sound where it’s impossible to separate the drone of the Farfisa organ from guitar feedback. All four of the EP’s songs provide variations on this theme, a hypnotic whir that seems unencumbered by the rules of gravity: the analog rumble, synth squiggles, and strummed chords are a collective force onto itself.
There’s a visceral thrill to Low Fi that remains potent, largely because Stereolab swapped force for sophistication after 1993’s Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements. This break isn’t illustrated on Pulse Of The Early Brain, which spends the remainder of its running time picking up stray tracks from the 1990s, adding a few cuts from 2008 for good measure. It’s the flip of last year’s Electrically Possessed (Switched On, Volume 4), where the lion’s share of the 25 tracks dated from the 2000s. Despite this concentration on the 1990s, the only other cut on Pulse Of The Early Brain to suggest the cacophonic roar of Low Fi is “ABC,” a contribution to a 1996 Godz tribute album where the gnarled, fuzzed-out guitar riff hints at hard rock before it gets engulfed by studio trickery.