After 19 years in Stereolab, it is understandable if Tim Gane views the process of releasing new music with a certain reluctance. Blood-Drums, the 2013 debut album from his band Cavern of Anti-Matter, was written and recorded in a month at the behest of Berlin label Grautag and originally limited to 500 copies; Hormone Lemonade, the band’s third long player, was born of band member Holger Zapf tinkering with self-constructed rhythm machines—the kind of origin story that does little to suggest Gane is ready to unleash his eternal masterpiece.
In a way, you can understand Gane’s reticence to blow the doors off. Stereolab’s reputation has only grown since they split in 2009—they’ve been referenced by everyone from Tyler, the Creator to Pharrell—and Gane has spoken of his desire to escape from the shadows of his illustrious past. That might be impossible, but on Hormone Lemonade, Gane and his bandmates try something new: They composed the music from the beats up, fleshing out Zapf’s work on synths, sequencers, drums, and guitar to produce music whose intensive rhythmic focus stands at some remove from Stereolab’s melodic signature.
The most distinctive moments on the album come when rhythm takes a leading role. “Solarised Sound” is not so much a song as a percussive maze, the chord sequence a relish to the rhythmic dish. The basic elements are straightforward enough—a mechanical bass-drum thump, layers of circular synth, and a simple guitar and drum pattern—but everything sounds as if it has been bathed in reverb, creating a disorienting effect where the notes seem to double back upon themselves like a sonic trompe-l’œil. “Motion Flow” is similarly hypnotic, unfurling mesmeric percussive layers that bring to mind rhythmically focused My Bloody Valentine tracks like “If I Am”.
However, even within the depths of such exploration, Gane’s compositional gifts keep drifting to the fore. The former Stereolab man is such a brilliant melodicist, and his loungey, jazz-influenced chord sequences so distinctive, that you half expect Stereolab singer Laetitia Sadier to turn up and start crooning about Marxism, even as Cavern of Anti-Matter float off into the musical ether. On the one hand, this means Hormone Lemonade will attract the kind of Stereolab comparisons Gane would doubtlessly rather avoid. On the other, the music’s weightless melodic rush frequently elevates the band’s shifting and often rather obtuse constructions into something altogether more palatable.
The brilliant mid-album pairing of “Automatic Morning” and “Feed Me Magnetic Rain” best illustrate this dichotomy. “Automatic Morning” is a movement in three parts: A motorik synth lead gives way to a mid section whose clipped bass riff and tight live drums nod to Dr. Dre circa The Chronic, and the closing three minutes take an improbable turn into Detroit techno, riding a synth riff that bobbles like a paper boat on a ruffled pond.
“Feed Me Magnetic Rain,” meanwhile, is an excursion into the glassy electronica that Autechre perfected on their earlier records, pairing a haunting keyboard melody with a pattering electro beat. This is not quite virgin territory for Cavern of Anti-Matter—“Pantechnicon,” on the band’s second album, Void Beats / Invocation Trex, hinted at electro influences—but “Feed Me Magnetic Rain” sees the band edge further down the electronic rabbit hole than ever before. On paper, neither song should be a particularly easy listen, but the group’s lilting chord sequences and melodic grace transform these adventures in sonic bricolage into something that sails deliciously close to pop music, much like Stereolab’s own fusion of avant-garde and easy listening.
Tim Gane may not appreciate the comparison, but he shouldn’t be dismayed. Hormone Lemonade is the work of a band who couldn’t write a bad chord sequence if they tried, allying rare melodic nous to dazzling rhythmic instincts. Rather than being trapped by his past, on Hormone Lemonade Gane draws upon it in brilliant new ways.
