On ‘Aerial Troubles’, the second track on Instant Holograms On Metal Film, Laetita Sadier sings “the numbing isn’t working anymore”. This lyric not only summarises the track, but also speaks to a broader generational unease. Instant Holograms is Stereolab’s response to the cruelties of everyday life.

Raised under the myth of endless progress, our generation has been taught to expect more. But, in reality, we have been granted less stability and hope. Instant Holograms confront this myth, refusing to detach from the harsh realities our generation faces – where consumerism dominates, the media manipulates, and attempts to make change in our shifting world seem unrealistic and idealised. Rather than offering escape, the record allows both confusion and joy to resonate. The listener is encouraged to feel their way through uncertainty, as opposed to numbing it.

Stereolab are an Anglo-French band known for their blend of motorik rhythms, lounge jazz and futurist synths. But this diagnosis feels too narrow. So, for me, they fall under my own fabricated umbrella of a French jazzy sort of Marxist pop, or maybe you can just think of them as an amalgamation of everything ‘esoteric’ about music.

“The listener is encouraged to feel their way through uncertainty, as opposed to numbing it”

Fifteen years after their last release, the groop (Stereolab refer to themselves as ‘the groop’ – a nod to their collectivist ethos) returns with a record that is both dreamy and defiant, perfect for those wanting to un-numb themselves and make sense of their disillusionment with capitalism’s broken promises. They continue to do what they do best, wrapping dense political critiques in hypnotic grooves.

‘Immortal Hands’ was an instant standout track for me. It opens with an image of industry on a scale so vast that it defies human comprehension: “Ego skyscraper, erect and collapsible… Beyond what I could hold in both my hands.” Capitalism is cast here as something unnatural due to its construction; it has overstayed its welcome, but threatens to fall apart constantly. However, while the skyscrapers loom over us, something more powerful and human emerges, with the song pivoting from scale to a sense of intimacy. The lyrics turn to love, which is described as creating “the freedom of an open sphere”. The muted, looping analogue synths that make up the first part of the track are soon disrupted by a drum machine. After the mention of love, brighter synths and new instruments join in on the fun, and the tune sounds fuller. The vulgar repetition of late capitalist industry, with its endless cycles of work and consumption, has rendered life a monotonous loop, but when emotion re-enters this loop, it disrupts the monotony, allowing for one’s world to be expanded.

This is where the more Romantic side of the record emerges. On ‘Immortal Hands’, and others like ‘If You Remember I Forgot How To Dream Pt.2’, we are urged to explore our inner self, suggesting that we can find beauty and truth if we look within ourselves and project that inward world outward. These songs do not shy away from our political reality but insist that imagination is necessary.

“The most radical thing you can do is not just to critique the system, but imagine a life beyond it”

While earlier tracks focus inward, ‘Vermona F. Transistor’ turns that energy outward. The band questions who is in charge, reminding us to be wary of the figures we might idolise. The song channels the influence of the Situationist movement (a radical mid-20th century avant-garde philosophy) that critiqued how capitalism turns life into a spectacle. Stereolab have long drawn from its ideas, with a call to disrupt passive consumption and reclaim reality.

Stereolab reject the false authorities of “the so-called Gods” and “jokers who pretend a God to be”. They touch on the Situationist idea that under capitalism, people are separated from real life and community, and are reduced to beings who relate to one another through artificial means, mediated by those in power. The line “ordained narrations that support disunion” points to the ways official ideology can maintain our separation from each other, while pretending to offer unity. The repeated line “I’m the creator of this reality” does not function as a self-help affirmation, but as a statement of reclaiming authorship of one’s lived experience. Against the passive consumption demanded by society, the Situationists believed that people must no longer be spectators of their own lives but active participants, and ‘Vermona F. Transistor’ pulses with that exact impulse.

I feel like this message can also hit home here at Cambridge. It is easy for us to get swamped up in the performance of it all, whether it is academic pressure or the weight of traditions and social roles. But, beneath that surface, many of us feel ungrounded, and this album reaffirms that it is okay to feel this sense of unease.

In that sense, Instant Holograms acts as a deceleration in disguise – a way of saying that you are allowed to feel angry as well as disoriented, and that you are not alone in wanting to seek something better. The most radical thing you can do is not just to critique the system, but imagine a life beyond it.