Album: Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
Year: 1993
. . .
Stereolab was founded the early 1990s by English dude Tim Gane and French woman Lætitia Sadier, and released tons of singles, EPs and even a couple of albums prior to their 1993 major-label debut, the awesomely-titled Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements.
I’m not even going to pretend I’ve heard all of their music, though I do recall sifting through some of their earlier recordings — including this album –after I discovered them with 1995’s Mars Audiac Quintent. Which means that I’m not going to go nearly as deep on them as I assume some of you might have wanted me to.
That said, “Jenny Ondioline,” — named after an electric keyboard invented by a guy named Georges Jenny — is an absolute classic of longform drone music. Probably one of those songs you love or hate, though, and it goes on and on and on and on for long stretches at a time, punctuated only by utterly gorgeous “ooooooooohs” and occasional lyrics, sung by Sadier and Mary Hansen.
Life on Earth is a bloody hazardous affair
As in the city, the republic was collapsing away
I think the brilliant crust’s hiding sad realities to come
And there’s a decisive battle that we all had that we lost
Honestly, though, I’ve never had any idea what the lyrics to “Jenny Ondioline” were: they’re mixed pretty low, and I’ve always been too busy enjoying the trance-inducing aspects of the song to even notice how provocative they were.
I don’t care if the fascists have to win
I don’t care democracy’s being fucked
I don’t care socialism’s full of sin
The untenable system engenders rotBut what is exciting’s the challenge and stimulation
That the tensions help keep the creative nerve so taut
Hoo boy!
Anyways, “Jenny Ondioline” starts with a guitar fanfare before heading directly into droneland. Not once, but twice, coming to a dead stop at about 6:40 to reintroduce the fanfare and then the drone, and eventually the vocals, which spend the next several minutes asking and demanding variations on the same thing.
We got to keep the lift, hope, and struggle
Where is the lift, the hope, and the struggle?
We got to keep the lift, hope, and struggle
Where is the lift, the hope, and the struggle?Give me the strength, the lift, hope, and struggle
We got to keep the lift, hope, and struggle
Where is the lift, the hope, and the struggle?
We got to keep the lift, hope, and struggle
Once again, I’ll admit I had no idea what they words were, as they were mixed down enough that I paid more attention trying to figure out what were guitars and and what were keyboards as it went on and on and on and one, eventually collapsing into the fanfare disguised as a wall of impenetrable noise, which dissolves into a keyboard, bass and drumbeat as the song fades out.
And it has to fade out, because there is no doubt that is still going on, forever and ever, world without end amen.
That said, Stereolab did try to take a line segment from “Jenny Ondioline” and make it into a single and even a video, and while it was perfectly fine in the shorter configurations — even making it to #75 on the U.K. singles charts — it just feels incomplete: even if you don’t formally know there is way more song to be had, you instinctively know there is way more song to be had.
“Jenny Ondioline”
“Jenny Ondioline” Official Video
“Jenny Ondioline” Live in Philadelphia, 1993
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