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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Stereolab: Dots and Loops - Review﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Review of Stereolab: ﻿<i﻿>﻿Dots and Loops ﻿</i>﻿

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by Ryan Daum﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, December 1997 - January 1998﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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For the last 7 years, Stereolab has been dishing up beautiful round pieces of experimental pop music with a dash of social conscience and intellectual sophistication to boot.Their 1996 album,"Emperor Tomato Ketchup" may remembered as one of the best albums of this decade for its excellent merging of future jazz funk with the droney blast and "space age bachelor pad music" of Stereolab-past.This mix has made it a landmark album for Stereolab and, in my opinion, for the whole genre of what could be called "non-commercial pop music."

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A lot has happened since "Emperor", however, and not being a band to stay within established musical formulas, Stereolab has been at work for the last year and a half modifying their recipe once again.This time locating themselves even closer to the emerging genre of "post-rock" music (i.e. Tortoise and ilk) - and also obviously influenced by the slow-and-surreal techno dub and drum ﻿&amp;﻿ bass of German artists like Non Place Urban Field and tour buddies Mouse on Mars - the new album, in theory, sounded like it would be a fine and tasty meal.

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Unfortunately, the result is not the well-rounded delicacy one would expect from the Lab. What's missing in the new album is the progressive energy and movement of previous releases,i.e. the politics and the punch of experimentation seems to be on the wane. As I'm writing this article I'm listening to "Transient Noise Bursts with Announcements" with its 4/4 beat, its militant drones and its "man the barricades" lyrics. Sadly, most of that drive seems to have been lost as Stereolab has fallen into the trap of playing mix and match with all the various sub-genre musical cults that are floating around right now. It seems like everybody is trying to jump onto the "electronica" and drum ﻿&amp;﻿ bass bandwagon these days, and more often than not they end up sounding like over-processed memories of "progressive rock". One expects more from top notch musicians like Stereolab.

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