“It is optimistic and empowering.”
Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier speak to Victoria Segal.
Going underground: Stereolab (from left) Xavier Muñoz Guimera, Laetitia Sadier, Joe Watson and Tim Gane.
After 15 years, why was the time right to make a new album now? Did
Not Music
feel like the end for the band?
Tim Gane: “I guess I did think Not Music/Chemical Chords [they were recorded at the same time] would be the last LPs of new music from Stereolab. Even when we started touring again in 2019 it was all around the recent reissue of seven of our LPs – a good reason for sure, but there was no thinking of extending that to a new LP. In the summer of 2023, we began to discuss the possibility. Andy Ramsay had already mentioned the idea and by autumn we decided to do it. In six weeks all the songs were written.”