Switched On

Compiling their first three singles, Switched On may be Stereolab in infancy, but it’s remarkably confident and assured. They were always a group who knew what they were doing, and songs like “Super-Electric” and “The Light That Will Cease To Fail” are beautiful, chugging drones that marry Neu!’s Apache beat with Velvets guitar and drowsy indie pop. But there’s plenty here to complicate the reductive caricature of Stereolab as Krautrock clones – the anxious lullaby of “High Expectation”; the lilt and chime of “The Way Will Be Opening”; the slow, regal blow-outs of “Contact” and “Changer.”