French Disko

The release of ‘French Disko’ saw Stereolab make their first appearance in the UK Singles Chart peaking at number 75 in January 1994. The song had quite a convoluted journey on it’s way there. Which, as far as I can figure out, goes something like this.

A slightly different version first appears on the ‘Jenny Ondioline’ EP titled ‘Frech Disco’. An alternate version of ‘Jenny Ondioline’ and a new version of ‘French Disco’, retitled as ‘French Disko’ are issued as promo CDs to UK radio stations. BBC Radio 1 decide to add ‘French Disko’ to the playlist but Duophonic aren’t in a position financially to re-issue the ‘Jenny Ondioline’ EP with ‘French Disco’ on the A side. Remaining copies of that release are stickered with the message ‘includes French Disco’ and a limited edition of 1000 CDs with handmade sleeves are released (catalogue number D-UHF-D01p). A further 3000 CDs with a printed green and white sleeve are then released and The Groop make a memorable appearance on Channel 4’s ‘The Word’ to plug the single.

I haven’t been able to confirm the exact date ‘French Disko’ was released given how it came about, Discogs gives it as 27/12/1993 but they appeared on ‘The Word’ in late November so it was at some point in November/December. The song would later appear on ‘Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On Vol 2)’, an early version and a demo version are included in the expanded edition of the 2019 reissue of ‘Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements’.

Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom, who played with The Groop live circa ‘Emperor Tomato Ketchup’, named ‘French Disko’ as one of his favourite songs in a feature for online music magazine The Line of Best Fit –

“If I had to pick one version of this song it would be from a BBC session from twenty years ago, which had a red cover with white text on it, I’m not sure if it’s still in print. That song in general though – the single version or the whole thing – was one of the really, really great songs of that era. “French Disko” stood head and shoulders above anything else that was coming out at the time.

“The first time I saw them live in any form was on The Word, back in the day. The sound was always really good on that show, which was really unusual for TV, especially from that era, anything on TV always sounded like shit if it was live music. I remember seeing Stereolab play “French Disko” and they just destroyed it, it was really great.”

The version Pete Kember is talking about is presumably the final part of the ‘French Disko’ story. A limited edition 7″ of 1500 copies with the same songs as D-UHF-D01p was pressed and sold on a European tour with Pavement (catalogue number D-UHF-D03). ‘Cliff’ makes a reappearance on the cover for the first time since ‘John Cage Bubblegum’.

Runout groove etching –

DUHFD-03-A1 The Exchange – NiLZ

DUHFD-03-B1 The Exchange – NiLZ