Dots and Loops is the fifth studio album by English-French rock band Stereolab. It was released on 22 September 1997 and was issued by Duophonic Records and Elektra Records. The band co-produced the album with John McEntire and Andi Toma, and recording took place at their respective studios in Chicago and Düsseldorf. It was produced on Pro Tools, making it the band's first album to use a Digital Audio Workstation.

The album features less emphasis on krautrock and drone rock styles than they were known for, and explores jazz and electronic sounds with bossa nova and 1960s pop music influences. Its lyrics address matters such as consumerism, the "spectacle", materialism, and human interaction.

Dots and Loops reached number 19 on the UK Albums Chart, as well as number 111 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States. The track "Miss Modular" was issued as a single and as an EP, and peaked at number 60 on the UK Singles Chart. Several music critics have praised Dots and Loops for its blend of accessible music with experimental and avant-garde sounds, and some have considered it to be one of the band's finest works. The album was reissued in 2019 with bonus material.

Background and recording

Seven of the ten tracks on Dots and Loops were recorded by Stereolab in March 1997 at the Chicago studio Idful Music Corporation with John McEntire, who also produced and mixed the tracks with the band.

In the first Chicago sessions, Stereolab attempted to record straight-to-tape as they did with previous albums. McEntire and drummer Andy Ramsay were dissatisfied with how the drums sounded and decided to try recording them in loops with Pro Tools recently installed in the studio's computer. The band's singer and lyricist Lætitia Sadier also said, "With the new technology, you make up a new way of doing things". Its artwork was designed by Julian House.

Musical style

thumb|Stereolab performing in 1999

In Dots and Loops, Stereolab departed from the strict krautrock and drone rock styles that the band were known for. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine characterized Dots and Loops as belonging to the leftfield indie subgenre ambient pop. Barney Hoskyns of Rolling Stone found that the album continued Stereolab's progression towards a lighter sound that he termed "avant-easy listening", Treble writer Jeff Terich noted the "more lush" quality of the music on Dots and Loops compared to Stereolab's previous work, characterising it as "gorgeously orchestrated" art pop.

Erlewine observed that Stereolab "concentrated on layered compositions" on Dots and Loops. The album frequently makes use of time signatures, including on the tracks "Diagonals", "Rainbo Conversation", and "Parsec". He used an EMS Vocoder for much of the albums instruments, including matched up guitar and drum playing for a "boing-boing, bouncy rhythmic sound." Kemp found that these themes are complemented by the album's "sprightly spirit", interpreting the "serene" quality of the music as a "critique on the numbness of society and how the more comfortable we get with capitalism, the more jaded we become to pain and suffering." concerns both "consumerist desire" and, reflexively, "the sheer amount of studio gadgets required to make the album itself." "Refractions in the Plastic Pulse" regards "human interaction amid the spectacle". with its heavy beat featuring a funky guitar line combined with electric percussion, drum machines and a drum kit.

| rev2 = Entertainment Weekly

| rev2score = A

| rev3 = The Guardian

| rev3score =

| rev4 = Los Angeles Times

| rev4score =

| rev5 = NME

| rev5score = 8/10

| rev6 = Orlando Sentinel

| rev6score =

| rev7 = Pitchfork

| rev7score = 8.5/10 (1997)

| rev8 = Rolling Stone

| rev8score =

| rev9 = Spin

| rev9score = 8/10

| rev10 = The Village Voice

| rev10score = B

Dots and Loops was released on 22 September 1997 in the United Kingdom by Duophonic Records, peaking at number 19 on the UK Albums Chart. becoming Stereolab's first entry on the Billboard 200 chart, where it peaked at number 111;

Prior to the album's release, "Miss Modular" was issued on 1 September 1997 as a single (on 7" vinyl) and as an EP (on CD and 12" vinyl), reaching number 60 on the UK Singles Chart. The song's music video was directed and produced by Nick Abrahams and Mikey Tomkins. The track "Parsec" was later used in commercials for the then-newly launched Volkswagen New Beetle.

Critical reception

Reviewing Dots and Loops in 1997, The Guardians Kathy Sweeney considered the album a successful move towards a more accessible and "pop-conscious" sound, with Stereolab's "avant-garde tendencies and atonal drone of old supplanted by breezy harmonies and, wait for it, tunes." Mojo, NME, and The Wire. It also placed at number 28 in The Village Voices Pazz & Jop critics' poll.

Legacy

Dots and Loops is Stereolab's most commercially successful album. In his retrospective review of the album for Pitchfork, Eric Harvey praised Dots and Loops as Stereolab's "peak", finding them "embracing the bleeding edge of digital studio technology" and creating "a work both of its moment and [...] that seems to hover outside everything else." Louis Pattison of Uncut described it as being "a touch less immediate" than Emperor Tomato Ketchup, remarking on its "laid-back and loungier" mood, while noting that it captured Stereolab in their "imperial phase".

Among other examples from the genre's first wave, Exclaim!s I. Khider cited Dots and Loops as a "definitive" post-rock recording in which it was "arguable that the abstract and repetitive elements of contemporary club culture has a hand in this music." Writing for the same magazine, Alex Hudson commended the band for "deliver[ing] some of their most accessible pop without sacrificing any of their experimental impulses."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

Stereolab

  • Tim Gane, Lætitia Sadier, Mary Hansen, Richard Harrison, Morgane Lhote, and Andy Ramsay – vocals, Farfisa organ, analogue synthesizers "and other electronic devices (for sound generating and filtering)", Rhodes piano, piano, clavinet, electric guitar, nylon string acoustic guitar, bass, drums, percussion, drum machines ("beatbox" and "electronic percussion")

Additional musicians

  • John McEntire – analogue synthesizer, electronics, percussion, vibraphone, marimba (tracks 1, 2, 4, 6–9)
  • Sean O'Hagan – piano, Rhodes piano, Farfisa organ (1, 2, 4, 6–9), brass arrangements, string arrangements
  • Douglas McCombs – acoustic bass (1)
  • Jan St. Werner – electronics, "insect horns" (3, 5, 10)
  • Andi Toma – electronics, electronic percussion (3, 5, 10)
  • Xavier "Fischfinger" Fischer – piano (3)
  • Jeb Bishop, Dave Max Crawford, Paul Mertens, and Ross Reed – brass section
  • Andy Robinson – brass arrangements
  • Poppy Branders, Maureen Loughnane, Rebecca McFaul, and Shelley Weiss – string section
  • Marcus Holdaway – string arrangements

Production

  • Stereolab (credited as "The Groop") – production, mixing
  • John McEntire – production, recording, mixing (1, 2, 4, 6–9 at Idful Music Corporation, Chicago)
  • Nick Webb – mastering (Abbey Road Studios, London)
  • Andi Toma – production, recording, mixing (3, 5, 10 at Academy of St. Martin in the Street, Düsseldorf)
  • Jan St. Werner – electronics and engineering (3, 5, 10)
  • Max Stamm – additional engineering (3, 5, 10)

Charts

{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;" border="1"

!scope="col"| Chart (1997)

!scope="col"| Peak<br />position

|-

|-

|-

|-

!scope="row"| UK Independent Albums (OCC)

| 5

|-

|-

|}

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;" border="1"

!scope="col"| Chart (2019)

!scope="col"| Peak<br />position

|-

|}

References

  • Dots and Loops at official Stereolab website