Jenny Ondioline by Stereolab
THE centrepiece of Stereolab’s second album, 1993’s Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, “Jenny Ondioline” has come in many forms: the 18-minute LP version, the snappy single version, and somewhere between those extremes on stage. In any variation, though, there are motorik rhythms, restless guitars, loping bass, droning organs, layered vocals and radical, politically charged lyrics.
“We played this song just last night,” says Lætitia Sadier on the phone from her hotel in Mexico City, where Stereolab are finishing up a lengthy American tour. “It went down very well. We don’t always perform it, and for a while it was not ready to be played, but now we’ve re-adapted it and it feels more friendly.”
2019 has seen the group reform for stellar live dates, nominally in support of deluxe remastered reissues of seven of their finest albums, including 1996’s classic Emperor Tomato Ketchup and 1993’s noisier, abrasive Transient….
“‘Jenny Ondioline’ encapsulated everything about Stereolab at that time,” says their longtime manager Martin Pike. “I still think it’s an amazing track.”
“[New York avant-punk guitarist] Rhys Chatham was very influential on me at the beginning of Stereolab,” explains guitarist Tim Gane, “the simplicity of it. I didn’t really understand tunings or just-intonation, but ‘Jenny Ondioline’ was the result of seeing what would happen if you tried to adopt those avant-garde principles for pop music. I just wanted to see what would happen.”
While “French Disco”, originally on the B-side of the “Jenny Ondioline” EP, is perhaps Stereolab’s most widely known song, the title
