Stereolab's Margerine Eclipse is a melancholy album that reminds us of the tragic death of Mary Hansen, the band's Australian vocalist and guitarist.
Melancholy is a feeling more profound and less overt than sadness. While the album is not as downcast as some may have expected, the songs that mix styles of the 1960s French pop, folk and electronic still carry a sense of melancholy that render them perfect memorials to Hansen.
When the band's lead singer and trombonist Laetitia Sadier sings explicitly about war and consumerism her messages are melancholic rather than political.
The album is about knowledge and love, as expressed in the lyrics in Dear Marge: The Joy to Love/To know to learn/Are thre essence/Of existence.
Strangely, the track Feel And Triple - the band's salute to Hansen - is the most complex and unsentimental of the album. They were very restrained in expressing their loss.
