Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night by Stereolab

Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, Stereolab's sixth studio album, arrived on 21 September 1999 through the band's own Duophonic label and Elektra, and the title alone warns you this is not a band that thinks in three-minute singles. The London group co-produced it with John McEntire and Jim O'Rourke, and the record sounds like a lounge combo that wandered into a physics lab and decided to stay.

Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier still steer, her cool voice sliding between English and French, with Mary Hansen's harmonies curling around it and Andy Ramsay's drums locked into that steady motorik chug. Vintage keyboards burble, jazz chords drift in and out, and the whole thing hovers somewhere between art pop, post-rock and psychedelic pop, with the band's usual leftist, Situationist-flavored ideas tucked under the sugar. "The Free Design" is the friendliest door in.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.