Crumb Duck Review Melody Maker Aug 28 1993

‘Crumb Duck’, Stereolab’s collaboration with Nurse With Wound, was reviewed by Simon Reynolds in the Singles Section of the Melody Maker August 28 1993 issue. As far as I can tell ‘Crumb Duck’ wasn’t actually released until October 1993 so not sure why it was reviewed in August.

I’ve transcribed the review –

STEREOLAB/NURSE WITH WOUND
CRUMB DUCK (Clawfist)
YOU have to admire their learnin’. First, there was “Space Age Bachelor Pad Music”, their sly homage to the Fifties/Sixties genre of “exotica”, pseudo-tropical muzak by the likes of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, that was designed a) to show off the newly invented stereophonic range of your music centre, b) as a seduction soundtrack. Then there was the tribute to the grandaddy of ambient, “John Cage Bubblegum”.

And now Stereolab have joined forces with Seventies experimentalists Nurse With Wound, seemingly to pay homage to Faust – the tile of “Animal Or Vegetable (A Wonderful Wooden Reason)” incorporates one of the Krautrockers’ choicest slices of gibberish. “Animal” starts as a Faust-like musaic of sonic debris, overlaid with Mademoiselle Sadier’s très Nico vocals, then mutates into a Velvets/Spacement drone mantra, a cornucopia of flourescent guitar-stuff. Finally, the song erupts into backwards tape-loop headf***ery.

Stereolab’s surfeit of knowledge might be stifling if they didn’t have the knack of turning it to such swoonworthy ends. This makes Single Of The Week two weeks running for the ‘Lab, and they deserve it.