Emperor Tomato Ketchup

Great early Sterrolab. Take listen to their recent stuff, it rocks! (2026) 1011

Another pleasingly slight album, the pleasures mostly in the little choices, the textures, cute melodies, distinctive instrumentation, amuses bouche on tap. Si, I read your review before posting this and now must mention I thought of St Etienne, but wasn’t going to mention them. I also remember them being very cool and having questions over substance. I appear to l enjoy slight 90’s hipster albums exactly one star more than you!

Some of it wasn't too bad, but it's too repetitive to listen to all the way through and not get bored.

It was an okay album, but it loses points for French.

There were moments I “got it,” & I generally like when vocals are used as an instrument rather than lyrically, but this just kinda went down all milquetoast

I’m more of a mustard guy

Nice enough but nothing more

Algo lindo

I used to see Stereolab by accident so often it became a running joke. Walk around the corner at Uni and hear a familiar band? Yep, gotta be Stereolab. As such I saw them on this tour but I hadn’t kept up with their post-Random Transient material as I thought that was both perfect and enough, so I was a little indifferent to them (should also be said they could be pretty dull live). A few years later this ended up in my CD player and well well well another perfect Stereolab album! I really had no idea they were capable of these shifts in style, let alone a focus on catchy pop songs. For better or worse, this sense that you could write a catchy pop song while also simultaneously deconstruct the instrumental arrangements was pretty important to me. Not saying that ever since I have been above the simple charms of a catchy song, but I will likely always prefer the “cerebral” pop song.

Reminds me of Yoshimi

french

4.5!

Good rock record

Love! I haven’t listened to much Stereolab, and I need to change that. Remember seeing them at a music festival just before Covid shut the world down. Will endeavour to see them next time they do a headliner show. 4.5/5

3.5

Listened

Started okay then got really interesting. Though I was listening to Yes by the end

I wanted to like this because I do enjoy a soundscape album, but the soundscape itself didn’t do much for me and every track felt twice as long as it was due to repetition. Rating: 2

Bit cutesy for my liking. Not terrible. Nit amazing. Needs more backing vocals.

Amazing!

This was an interesting listen for sure. I had heard the name Stereolab but could not place anything they had done that I had listened to. The album started out with the lead track being quite monotonous and I was unsure of where it would lead. Then the second track was pretty good even with it being in French. After that I felt like the album was just up and down and maintained that path. I leaned towards a 5/10 or 6/10 and decided to give it 3 stars. Was a decent listen but not something I would listen to a whole again.

This album is such a weird, addictive trip that totally messes with your sense of time. It mixes those steady Krautrock beats with fuzzy synths and breathy, French/English vocals to create these hypnotic soundscapes that feel both retro and futuristic. It’s perfect as background music, but if you actually pay attention to tracks like "Metronomic Underground", "Cybele's Reverie", and "The Noise Of Carpet", you’ll realise how clever and layered the arrangements really are. It might not be for everyone... If you’re not into repetitive grooves, quirky French pop, or artsy lounge vibes, it can drag a little. But honestly, the songwriting is so unique and playful that it rarely feels boring.

I've listened to Sterolab on and off for some time now and I've liked Sadier's distinct French voice of the band that brought Anglo and French music together in the 90s. However, this is not their signature album and Dots and Loops is not in the book. This is still pretty good, though.

I'm really asking myself about this album, because there are moments of shear beauty, but also silly ones that I don't know how to categorize. While it's a very interesting album the all thing wasn't even for me. But some songs were phenomenal. A high 3. 3.8

Quite nice background music. But not really more.

The first track was this terrible drawn out thing that kind of went nowhere. Second track was fantastic. The rest of the album settled into being just okay.

Perfectly pleasant but some distance from being an album you must listen to.

Pretty interesting album. Feel like you could draw a direct line between early electronische synths and the sounds in the first few songs of the album. I was mostly captivated by the instrumentals. Kicks off with a lot of neat synth and sequencer sounds before steering into more of a rock sound and finally melding them together more. Really fun and enjoyable stuff. The vocals were nice but i didnt have the chance to read along the french translations so unsure of the lyric use for the most part but enjoyed what i heard. The whole album feels very mildly disjointed but in a sort of precise way like a very pretty patchwork quilt. Overall really enjoyed the listen through but dont see myself pulling many of these songs up individually.

Fun and I get the repetition as a choice but doesn't build through that repetition enough for my taste. Highlights: "Cybele's Reverie", "Tomorrow is Already Here", "Motoroller Scalatron"

Tellement bien enregistré. Ça respire dans l'enregistrement, on entend tout très clairement, c'est beau. Ça tripe à fond, comme musique. Ça peut remplacer la drogue.

Gloire à l'empereur!

Very interesting. I think this album works at an intellectual level but I am not an intellectual listener. Like a lot of music in this genre, I can see why they would enjoy making it. There is a lot going on and they are clearly having fun with it. Super interesting use of glockenspiel! At a more visceral and experiential level, I don’t really connect with it.

This is a great album. Stereolab doesn't share much with Steely Dan, but both bands have a history of releasing albums with surprisingly infelicitous cover designs. This is a solid example. The Lab also have some terrible videos out there on the YouTubes. They're remarkable on the Audio, not so much the Visual. Stereolab put out a lot of music over a ten year period, and many, many good songs. Also many "tried something interesting, and ... here it is" songs. As a result, their albums are generally a mixed bag. (And admirers often have very different ideas about which is the good stuff.) Their two most successful albums start to finish are Mars Audiac Quintet and Emperor Tomato Ketchup (which title, disappointingly, is simply lifted from the title of a Japanese film -- sort of like My Life In the Bush of Ghosts). I found Stereolab during the Aughts by messing around on Allmusic with the "similar bands" feature on somebody's page. This was said to be the pivotal masterpiece by the Allmusic reviewer. I bought it and haven't looked back. Fascinating band. The songs that really drew me in as I was first listening to ETK were Metronomic Underground and Les Yper-Sound. The former shows up in a magnificent live-at-the-BBC performance on ABC Music. It's a bit like going from the great, long songs on Remain In Light side one to the even greater live versions on The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads. The latter (Les Yper), oddly, is I think uniformly ignored on compilations (outside of a pretty lame version on ABC.) Actually, there are some other great songs of theirs that don't get anthologized, too. Their compilations are perhaps as dodgy as their album covers. One striking feature of Stereolab is that they always sound the same, or like their own very distinctive selves ... but exercise remarkable imagination and ingenuity in finding new and different ways to get there. This album displays that quality to a great extent. Lots of different sounds, very cohesive feel. This album opens with four great songs (Metronomic; Cybele's Reverie -- which for some reason shows up on all the compilations, even though ... anyway; Percolator, and Yper). From there, it's just one variation on how to be a goofball arty post punk inheritor of the VU / krautrock avant rock lineage after another. Whenever I listen to this album, it's a string of "oh, yeah -- this one; I forgot how good this is" moments, one after another. Noise of Carpet! The stately grace of Tomorrow Is Already Here. The title track ... so many songs, so good. The exceptions for me are Monstre Sacre, which I think is meant to be atmospheric and mysterious, but which I find to be meandering and dull; and Slow Fast Hazel, which is unfortunate, because as their career went on, that became a kind of default for them -- they started doing at lease one new version of more or less that song per album. Many critics praise Sound Dust highly; not me. That thing is dull. It's full of Slow Fast Hazel reiterations. Still -- this is a long album. Out of 13 songs, 11 are really good. Two are just ok. Great album. All the stars. Message me privately for a Stereolab playlist.

as one of the people in my listening group really loves this album, I wanted to like it, I really did, but I really didn't

The group chat messages about this one left me very curious. I had a sense this would not exactly be my cup of tea, and that sense was correct. When the record started I was kind of digging the first track and had the hope that maybe my assumption was wrong, and I would love this as much as my esteemed colleagues. But that hopeful feeling wore off. I can't really appreciate this record on its own terms, I don't think, because I don't really understand how they construct their songs. So, like some of the jazz albums we've heard, I think I'm just not the audience for this music. I will also say that I do not care for the lead singer at all. There were a couple of songs on here I liked, and there were moments on other songs I enjoyed, but then something else would pop up and I would get annoyed. I could see this record working as background music for some other activity but I can't ever imagine actively listening to it again.

I never got into Stereolab, there were many more exciting things to listen to at the time, Now that time has passed, perhaps they're worth a re-vist? Eh, it's pretty much as I remember, a cooler Gallic St Etienne with a bit more substance. C'est bof.

it was altight, sometimes even pretty good

Certainly experimental, but drones on a bit too long. Wasn't completely "rock" I guess too, as the album jumped around a bit by utilizing the synthesizer, vibraphone, and organ among others. Certainly interesting in a sense of I wasn't sure what I was going to hear next, but not something I'll think about too much about after today.

Pleasantly surprised by this

This record had its moments, but plagued with repetitive and low-groaning rhythms. Favourite Track(s): Percolator, Cybele's Reverie Least Favourite Track(s): Emperor Tomato Ketchup

When this popped up I got confused, wondering why Stereo MCs had another album in the book. Needless to say I was not really familiar with Stereolab but I liked it This has a really pleasing vibe and I enjoyed the way the songs groove along. It has a bit of trip-hop feel in places, I found myself just spaced out and going along for the ride at times. Enjoyed the French/English vocals too, she reminded me a bit of Nico

Sorti en 1996, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, le quatrième véritable album studio de Stereolab demeure à mes yeux le sommet absolu du phare franco-britannique, un chef-d’œuvre d'art rock et d’art pop qui mérite sans la moindre hésitation un monumental 5 sur 5. C’est un disque qui empile dix mille trouvailles à la minute et qui invente un futur radieux sur les cendres magnifiquement recyclées des trente années qui l’ont précédé. Ce qui est fascinant avec cet album, c’est cette alchimie improbable entre deux sensibilités que tout aurait pu opposer. D’un côté, la rigueur obsessionnel et le flegme aventureux de Tim Gane, rat de discothèque accumulant les 45 tours oubliés, les bandes-son de séries B et les manifestes bruitistes ; de l’autre, le magnétisme désinvolte, la diction tranchante et la grâce hautaine de la Parisienne Lætitia Sadier. Ce pont jeté au-dessus de la Manche, c’est une friction permanente, enrichie par les contrechants aériens de la regrettée Mary Hansen et le travail de John McEntire, venu insuffler depuis Chicago toute la précision et la souplesse du post-rock de Tortoise. Le résultat n’est pas une démonstration de force prétentieuse mais une machine sonore rutilante, organique et incroyablement vivante. Dès l’ouverture, le groupe nous attrape avec « Metronomic Underground » et grâce à sa ligne de basse d’une rondeur presque criminelle, d’une élasticité sourde qui emprunte autant à la transe hypnotique de Can qu’au funk le plus déviant de la fin des années 1970, le collectif pose son autorité avec une insolence royale. Sur cette pulsation implacable, le chant blanc et les scansions cryptiques de Sadier transforment des bribes de slogans en pures décharges poétiques. Le morceau prend son temps, s’étire, superpose les strates de guitares râpeuses et de claviers analogiques avant de basculer dans une déflagration d’orgues saturés d’une puissance jubilatoire. C’est la preuve éclatante qu’on peut être follement cérébral, obsédé par les structures complexes, tout en trouvant le moyen de secouer les hanches avec un sens du groove absolument redoutable. La véritable prouesse de cet album repose sur sa capacité à digérer une quantité astronomique d’influences disparates sans jamais virer au collage informe ou à la parade de collectionneurs prétentieux. Là où d'autres s’enfermaient dans des murs de larsen monolithiques ou recyclaient paresseusement les suites d’accords des années 1960, Stereolab fait sauter tous les verrous stylistiques. Le krautrock le plus rectiligne et métronomique — cette pulsation motorik héritée de Klaus Dinger, Neu! ou Faust — vient s’entrechoquer avec la candeur d’une pop yéyé à la Françoise Hardy, les arabesques sinueuses d’une bossa nova désarticulée, les dérapages abrasifs du Velvet Underground et les tourneries de synthétiseurs vintages. Les Moog crépitent, les orgues Farfisa vrombissent comme de la machinerie rétro-futuriste réchauffée au fer rouge, et les arrangements de cordes apportent une respiration cinématique grandiose, digne des partitions les plus barrées de Morricone ou de François de Roubaix. Mais ce qui me retourne le cerveau à chaque écoute, c’est le contraste vénéneux entre la limpidité des mélodies et la virulence du propos. Lætitia Sadier et Mary Hansen construisent des polyphonies vocales d’une pureté bouleversante, tissant des harmonies qui rappellent les comptines enfantines ou les refrains les plus immédiats de la pop des Sixties. Pourtant, dès qu’on prête l’oreille aux paroles, la douceur se mue en manifeste. On y dissèque la lutte des classes, on y dénonce l’aliénation marchande, la brutalité des hiérarchies sociales et le cynisme du capitalisme avancé avec une précision clinique. Cette collision frontale entre l’extrême légèreté formelle et la gravité politique crée un malaise délicieux. Le mixage et la production apportent à l'ensemble un équilibre parfait qui manque si souvent aux disques trop ambitieux. Loin des bouillies saturées ou des productions étouffantes et clinquantes de son époque, le son respire avec une clarté vivifiante. Les batteries claquent, les lignes de basse serpentent, et les couches électroniques s’emboîtent. Chaque dissonance, chaque rupture rythmique inattendue, chaque montée de tension sert directement la dynamique du morceau. Le groupe construit un univers sonore, un sanctuaire où Karl Marx et Burt Bacharach partageraient un café dans un vaisseau spatial lancé à toute allure. Emperor Tomato Ketchup n'a pas pris une seule ride, c'est en y réfléchissant l'apanage des disques visionnaires qui ne se sont jamais souciés d'être dans le vent pour éviter de devenir périmés le lendemain. Près de trois décennies plus tard, cette œuvre continue de me fasciner en m'offrant à chaque écoute une trouvaille harmonique négligée, un contrepoint vocal sublime ou une syncope cachée sous un maelström de claviers analogiques. C'est un triomphe artistique complet, un sommet d’audace et de fraîcheur qui s'impose comme un repère inaltérable dans le paysage du rock indépendant mondial. Un classique absolu, intemporel, radical et indispensable.

This is a legendary krautrock/ French pop / jazz album. First half of the album is a five, second half is a three. I'm a bigger fan of the dots and loops/ Cobra phases era of stereolab but this is still a great record.

Another 90’s techno/techno adjacent album that is just ok. Maybe this style/genre is just not my jam. There are some interesting elements and some of the songs are catchy enough, but let’s just say that my socks are still securely on my feet.

I don’t know if I really have the grip on how to describe this one in words (it felt sort of shoegaze/ambient/french house for lack of a better mashup of ideas), which I guess is the magic of post-rock for whatever that means, but I do know I fuck with it. It’s very groovy and flow state and has its sound and energy and has this sort of sly intellectualism to the lyrics as they come through in English or French, and all that shit clicks for me.

3.4

An album if always meant to listen to but never did. Shams, as I liked it a lot. I'll be listening again for certain.

Yes, sometimes I'm almost speechless. Is this a school project? I'd heard the name "Stereolab" before, but never consciously heard a song or seen a video by the band. The band members must have had fun making the album, if only because they somehow managed to sneak "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" past the producers and the record company. The whole record could only have been created in a school lab. Everything is repetitive, predictable, and boring. So, a lot of time wasted. Like any normal lab, there's a lot of waste, and this record definitely qualifies.

Nothing super special but I've listened to it twice already. 3-4 rats.

Specifying ketchup as "tomato" is redundant these days. Classic fench electronica, tho.

french

Love the bass and the steady rhythms. Nice synth sounds floating around as well.

The complete opposite of my taste, not for me at all

Too much French. Not the good kind

Metronomic Underground

Not my thing

Metronomic Underground 3.6 Cybele's Reverie 3.3 Percolator 3 Les Yper-Sound 3.4 Spark Plug 3.3 OLV 26 3.1 The Noise of Carpet 3.2 Tomorrow Is Already Here 3 Emperor Tomato Ketchup 3.2 Monstre Sacre 3.2 Motoroller Scalatron 3.4 Slow Fast Hazel 3.2 Anonymous Collective 3 Score: 3.223076923

Offered an album with this impenetrable title by artists I'd not heard of, I almost didn't listen. But I did, and it was just about worth the investment of time. Unlikely to revisit, though.

Just dull, will not revisit.

A little spacey, a little naive, a little oddball. Not great singing and I’m still waiting for something catchy that I can remember.

I didn't like this at all

This list is killin' me. This is an interesting album, but is it a must hear Top 1001 record? Fuck no. I got into them for a minute in the late 90's and I would not call this their best album. They have cool song that are way less annoying. I liked the groove on the opener, "Metronomic Underground", but my god, that horse got beaten to death at 8 mins. About as vanilla as it gets. This was not a fun listen. The instrumentation was good at times, irritating at others. Moving from English to French got old. It felt like they were practicing and putting it on tape, unfinished thoughts and incomplete songs. It felt like a new band playing together and noodling before they know who they are. Not enjoyable. 2 stars and that's a stretch. No hits, no influence/longevity, no airplay, no nothing.

Very chill sound.

🫤 ok, the bass got me, but other than that…Fuck right off!

can't make my mind up on this one. overall it's solid and i love the subtle quirkiness of it all with speed and calmness seemingly coexisting without effort. it's lowkey boring but then there's those banger melodies like "The Noise Of Carpet". damn, guess i hate to love it somehow?

Bien.

Surprised by how familiar I was with this, actually. Still felt too long. But it was good. And diverse. 4 Boolean: True

Average Pop

I sort of like Stereolab. The album was a 2.5 but I rounded up because the song names are cool.

Fun album, really on the edge with this one ..not sure I could listen to her high pitch voice much longer but it gets another listen .

tiene momentos raritos que se destacan pero se repite como un cd rayado 5/10

I had high hopes going into this album, as I had heard good things about Stereolab before, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. It had a relatively weak first half but did pick up a bit in the second. Still, not as interested in this as I thought I'd be, but still quite good. 7.5/10

i love everything yesss plug it into me put this on forever nnnnnnghhh

Stereolab was sort of The Meters for a new millennium and this is one of their better records. Best band of the 90's? Deserving to be on the short list for sure. Cool shit!

I'm not sure why it confused me so much to see this album in today's selection, and then to realize that this is the only Stereolab album in the collection; I suspect much this was largely because I own a different album of theirs (2001's "Sound Dust"), and must have decided at some point that it was part of the "1001 Albums" project. Either way, I've enjoyed what little I've heard before from this duo, and I'm happy to get a different set of tracks to hear from them. I get the sense from the Wikipedia entry that "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" marked a transition to what I think of Stereolab's sound--sort of minimalist electronic pop descended from the progeny of Philip Glass and Kraftwerk, I guess (with a touch of Brazilian Girls, shamefully missing from the project)--and helped them get a broader audience, although it's hard to imagine that their audience was ever all that big given their niche style. Highlights for me were the opener "Metronomic underground", "Les yper-sound", and the Nico/Velvet Underground-adjacent "Tomorrow is already here", with a nod to the odd Shuji-Terayama-inspired videos for "Cybele's reverie" and "The noise of carpet" (especially because I finally got to see the person behind Lætitia Sadier's distinctive vocals). Nothing spectacular here (and a bit of a slog towards the end of the album), and I think I prefer "Sound Dust" to this album, but nice to have Streolab here. (And for some reason it calls to mind that this project is also missing out by not including the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars, who don't really sound at all like Stereolab but deserve a place at the table just as much.)

Much like its namesake film, this album made me feel like throwing up. Success?

Always loved the quirkiness of this album.

The first three songs sounded like one long one. After that, it was just hit or miss ambient background fodder that did little for me one way or the other.

I found this a bit odd and interesting. But I still didn’t like it.

Stereolab is a band I’ve struggled with. I’ve heard many of their albums before, including this one. I’ve seen them live and didn’t enjoy it. This time I realized it’s the voice. Everything else is great but the vocal tone just doesn’t agree with me. Still giving it a positive rating because it’s an accomplished album that I’d recommend to others.

Very unique sound Fave track: Metronomic Underground

I don't know how it works so well, but it just does. 3.5/5

4.5

90s sound. Different languages

This was really enjoyable. Perhaps a little overlong. It could have done with a couple of the weaker tracks not being there. Overall though, I was very impressed.

Hard to trust this review given I spun this very late at night after a birthday thing and I was in a mood to enjoy, but I was pulled into a very deeply immersed state where every track reeled me in slowly and seemed to keep layering on more and more engaging elements. All in all, an awesome listening experience. If I listen again and come to a radically different conclusion I may update this rating later.

The best noun noun noun album so far. I had a hard time deciding between a four and a five. Ultimately, I went for alignment with the recently-reviewed, and Project Partner Certified, four-star Screamadelica.

I like this singer and the electric 90s sound. Really pretty solid at points tho not quite a 4

Really liked this one

Loses a star for Fr🤮nch

I've long loved Stereolab, and I"m always happy when a song pops up on a playlist or radio. It's been a while since I listened to this entire album though, and I must admit that, while still very enjoyable, it demands a certain relaxed mood. It's got a repetitive groove, but whether I'm digging that groove depends upon the mood.

great vibe, very cool. mellow by times but chaotic and hectic sometimes too. Very well constructed. A bit 'anxiety inducing' by time though.

Very futuristic-sounding

Just an hour of straight nothing

I don’t even remember one track from this album which speaks for itself.

This feels like an homage to 60's/70's psychedlic/lounge music with wild/weird production from the 90's. Really cool. I don't know many other bands like it if I can even name another banad like it generally.

I like the album, but it's long and very varied, so it needs more listens before I give a final rating. But it is at least a strong 3.

This ain't it.

It just gets worse. Damn you wretched thing!

This was weird. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad, sometimes it was French. But above all it was interesting