Au revoir, Stereolab

My favourite Marxist French krautpop retro-futurist electro-poppers Stereolab have split up, or at least gone into hibernation. I am genuinely saddened by the demise of a band which have soundtracked my life since the early 90s. Their albums lost a little something when Mary Hansen died, but they're still wonderful.

Dear All,

As we recently made #51 with Emperor Tomato Ketchup in the Amazon 100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums of all Time we feel that our work is done for the moment.
We have had to cancel the last two shows that we were scheduled to play, apologies to all that had bought tickets, and there are no plans to record new tracks.
Duophonic are working on the release of Chemical Chords 2, we also have plans for a new Switched On and remastering of the back catalogue.
We are are all going to have a bit of a rest now after nearly 19 years and work on a few other projects.
The website will still be updated and disks released but there won't be any new Stereolab product for a while.

Cheerio

Meanwhile, I'm sure you're all dying to know what books I acquired yesterday. Well (deep breath): Lucien Laurat's Marxism and Democracy (Left Book Club 1940 - I collect this series), Political Allegory in Late Medieval England by Ann Astell, two Sheri Tepper novels, The Fresco and The Companions (I really rate her thoughtful eco-feminist science fiction), Jane Austen's Poems, padded out with her 'favourite poems', which is a bit of a cheat, a collection of Jonathan Swift's Major Works that aren't Gulliver's Travels, The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse, Jeff Noon's Nymphomation (Manchester cyberpunk, yeah), Njal's Saga (Icelandic, good miserable stuff), Robertson Davies's The Rebel Angels, another copy of Richardson's Pamela to replace a 'borrowed' one, Gwyn Jones's Short Stories, Langguth's Patriots (studies of the Fathers of the American Revolution, Postmodernism: a Very Short Introduction, an amusing bullshitters' guide called The Eng. Lit. Kit, and Sean Latham's Am I A Snob? Modernism and the Novel.

All in haul, a fascinating hall, no doubt to be divided into the 'must read now' pile and 'should read one day' stack.

Don't forget: tonight's edition of Who Do You Think You Are? features David Mitchell. I'm hoping my dad doesn't turn up on it.