“The light of Autumn days/That penetrates irremediably and without violence/Fragile in its incandescence/It shines like a force that ruffles the soul”. Having always associated the autumnal atmosphere with my favourite Stereolab songs, I was inevitably struck by these lines from “The Spiracles” off The Groop’s new lp. I can relate to them more than anything else Lætitia has written in the past, and I also have the feeling that “Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night” contains some of her finest work as a lyricist. It has a tangibility to it, a balance between the physical and the spiritual, and I suppose it wouldn’t be too sentimental or naive to (at least partly) impute this artistic achievement to the baby who was born last year, “l’impalpable devenu matière” of which she evokes the magic in “The Emergency Kisses”. Some of the new songs (produced by John McEntire and Jim O’Rourke) rank likewise among Stereolab’s most soulful and poetic output: the ultrarefined pop of “People Do It All The Time” and “Blips Drips And Strips”, and the overwhelmingly sweet melodies of “The Spiracles” and “Velvet Water” –inspiring tunes which conjure up a constant flow of memories and archetypal images, stuff that must have always been in your mind. You just can’t dissect the mistery of this music, but yeah, Plato must have been right all along and Stereolab are there to prove it! I’ll randomly mention two great moments: 1)the ending to “Puncture In The Radar Permutation”, with just the strings and a kickass rhythm section – sonically mindblowing 2) the first half of “Italian Shoes”: it’s like time-travelling through this century, every filter used on Lætitia’s voice calling up a different decade.One minor complaint. This album boasts an awesome start (“Fuses” – the jauntiest, jazziest, happiest Theme From Stereolab the band has ever given us) but has no real, appropriate end. Had it stopped at track 10 or 11 (where The Groop seems to be crossing the Steppes, strumming along and fiddling with the usual spacey noises) it would have been an indestructible musical organism lasting about 50 minutes. But then we get another 22 minutes of music which, despite being excellent, sound like a bonus, a long encore: running orders go out of the window, there’s no real continuity. Anyway – one of those last four tracks is “Caleidoscopic Gaze”, a suite which finally sees the boundaries between the Labs and the Llamas almost disappear (there are in fact two Beach Boys stompalongs on the album). Another “closing” track is the aforementioned “The Emergency Kisses”, ten milliseconds of which, featuring only Laetitia’s voice and a guitar, are tremendously Great – therefore raising a doubt about the whole affair: aren’t some of the arrangements a bit overcrowded? wouldn’t it be very nice to hear some of these songs in stripped-down form – just the vocals and a semiacoustic or a piano, or at least turning off the dots and loops? I think they really ought to give it a try, who knows…