Stereolab has the groove down to a science

"More technicalities," said Laetitia Sadier in response to a persistent hum that preceded Stereolab's second song at the Paradise Rock Club on Monday. The irony, of course, was that the sonic annoyance, in other circumstances, might have been a welcome part of the song; more than once did guitarist Tim Gane and keyboardist Joseph Watson find noise wherever they could. But for a band that named itself in part after the place where scientists work, these sorts of things can't just happen on their own.

Still, the minor technical blips (which also included slight microphone problems, but only between songs conveniently enough) served nicely to humanize a band whose records can fool even fans and well-wishers into thinking that they're cold and clinical. Songs like the wibbling drive of "Jenny Ondioline" and the space-Mantovani "Chemical Chords" were softened even when the "dee dee de deet" and "ba da ba" vocals had more in common with telegraphy than human communication.

It also helped whenever Stereolab located a groove. A number of songs drew on the swinging, in-the-pocket spirit of Motown, while even the more straight-ahead, psych-garage rock of "Mountain" picked up more weight as it continued on. By the end of "Self-Portrait With 'Electric Brain,' " with its synthesized xylophone and trumpet, the cut-time clomp had collapsed to the point where everyone except Sadier was hitting the same staccato beats at once.

Some songs, like "Silver Sands" and "The Ecstatic Static," sounded like Stereolab spinning its wheels by updating what space-age music sounded like in the "Mad Men" era. But more often, the band earned its futurism. "French Disko" had the momentum of "Roadrunner," if Jonathan Richman were singing about a spacecraft instead of a car, while folks could dance to the energetic boogie of "Stomach Worm" if they weren't too busy being freaked out by it.

Best of all was "Lo Boob Oscillator," which started as Gallic surf music until Gane and Watson began squawking while Andy Ramsay's zippy, skippy drumbeat blazed by. Eventually the noise defeated the beat, at least until Ramsay came back as propulsive as before. And while Sadier may not be much of a dancer, dance she did, breaking out into a low-key shimmy, the way she did in almost every other song.

Sadier also fronted Monade, opening for her own band with a dry, quasi-tuneless strum that served as a frothier offshoot of Stereolab's poppier leanings. They were followed by Le Loup (French name, American band), who went from banjo- and mandolin-driven Appalachian twitch-core one moment to echoing guitar pings over rolling, hyperactive drums the next.