IT'S NOT ETERNAL

I tend to travel in cycles of obsession.

I discovered Stereolab one late summer day in 1995. I was lounging on a borrowed recliner in an airy rented house. The walls were white, the windows were numerous, the sun was earnest, and this all combined to have a sweet narcotic effect. I had the TV tuned to MuchMusic from Canada, and the video for Ping Pong came on. Interesting.

I bought Mars Audiac Quintet a couple of days later, and found myself in the same chair, evening now, absolutely hypnotized by the drone of the first three tracks. Obsessed.

“What is this?” my wife asked, not in wonder, but rather with a slight air of resignation that she would probably be spending the next several years in its midst…