From humble origins, when Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier started Stereolab as an anti-careerist respite after the soured decline of McCarthy, `the groop' has quietly, stealthily grown. Its new mini-album shows how far it's come from that "What Goes On" blueprint, and yet how the Velvets' swingiest r'n'r mantra remains its hub-the less-is-more maxim still applies. The Groop Played "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music" decorates its beat-group miasma with a more pronounced Beach Boys surfs-up undertow, with added Moog/Farfisa laboratory mischief. "Avant Garde M.O.R.," "The Groop Play Chord X" and "Ronco Symphony" are exercises in fundamental pop nirvana-The Mamas And The Papas meet Can; "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music (Mellow)" rocks out on a single, rubbery Moog riff while the "Foamy" version is a sequence of beautiful squelches (if blancmange could play. . .); to end with, the two versions of "We're Not Adult Oriented" (one studio, one live) unashamedly embellishes that universal "What Goes On" sound, as guitars run ribbons around a maypole of an organ part in a funfest of electrical hums.

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