Dots & Loops

Stereolab | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 23, 1997)
• Original Release Date: September 23, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Elektra / Wea
• ASIN: B000002HQ3
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,500 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #77 in Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Ambient Pop

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The raw artiness and German rock influences heard on this U.K. sextet's landmark Transient Random-Noise Bursts (1993) have been distilled into a smooth sour-mash cocktail here. As with sister act The High Llamas, there's a buoyant '60s whimsy to these tracks, recorded in Chicago (with Tortoise's John McEntire), Düsseldorf and elsewhere. Laetitia Sadier has refined her Françoise Hardy routine, and Tim Gane marshals his vintage synths to fine effect on "Prisoner of Mars" and "The Flower Called Nowhere." --Jeff Bateman

Product Description

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: STEREOLAB
Title: DOTS & LOOPS
Street Release Date: 09/23/1997
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Audio Masterpeice, September 16, 2005

By 

A. Platts "I eat jazz" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dots & Loops (Audio CD)

As with all Stereolab Albums that drastically change their sound from previous albums, I really didn't like this album at first. I was embarrased to listen to it becuase of its happy spacious melodies and horn arrangements were reminiscent of the 1960's and go-go music.

This album could best be described as an "Impressionist-Electro-Brazilian-Lounge-Pop"

This album just gets better every time I hear it. Stereolab is a very subtle group, and the amount of complexity and work that went into making this album simply isn't apparent the first or even tenth listen. But the use of odd metric groupings, the horn voicings, the use of vocal harmonies, and all of the interlocking melodies are simply genious. I'm still discovering new layers of complexity in this beautiful music.

The horns remind me of Gil Evans, and the lush harmonies harken to Ravel or Debussy.

This album is simply genious.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange Reward, November 12, 2004

By 

Cant Free (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dots & Loops (Audio CD)

I stole my first Stereolab tune off the Internet, Refractions in the Plastic Pulse, what a place to start. Within thirty minutes, I likewise on the net, bought Dots and Loops(I'm fascinated by the reviewers who purchase by cover art; that's backwards to me). Balance, consistency, restraint, maturity, constant attention to symmetry where mugging for the listener/audience/camera through butt jiggling and/or overly decorative lyrics are supposed to be, oh brave new music industry, that there are such wondrous creatures making a living in it. I can't get over the seriousness of their enterprise. A pop band, which does not relinquish their pursuit of making good music to a petite melody designed to grab the average listener at an instant; then there are the hypno-melodies that will enwrap the casual listen as it does the choir. Dots and Loops is not a music release. It is a disc of spells.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Mummy! I can hear the fractals!", August 10, 2000

By 

David Kipp (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dots & Loops (Audio CD)

Mere words cannot adequately describe how I treasure this record: wherein every song is a densely and intricately constructed whole unto itself and still the whole far transcends the sum of its coruscating parts. Best to describe my relationship with this record as a collection of associations and fragments: falling in love and a coffee buzz: Diagonals: angular grooves; driving at night: Contronatura: dark, effervescent pulses; holidaying in mountains at Easter: Brakhage and Parsec: shambolic cadences; above all, the company of loved friends.