Dots and Loops [Expanded Edition]

Stereolab includes: Laetitia Sadier (vocals); Tim Gane (guitar); Mary Hansen, Richard Harrison, Morgane Lhote, Andrew Ramsay.
Additional personnel: Rebecca McFaul, Shelley Weiss, Poppy Branders, Maureen Loughnane (strings); Paul Mertens, Dave Max Crawford, Jeb Bishop, Ross Reed (brass); Sean O'Hagan (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, Farfisa organ); Xavier "Fischfinger" Fischer (piano); John McEntire (synthesizer, percussion, vibraphone, marimba); Douglas McCombs (acoustic bass); Andi Toma (electronic percussion, sound effects); Jan St. Werner (sound effects, insect horns).
Producers: John McEntire, Andi Toma, Stereolab.
Recorded at Idful Music Corp., Chicago, Illinois and Academy of St. Martin In The Street, Dusseldorf, Germany.
Is the sound of Stereolab's Moogs, electric keyboards, and strummed guitars starting to infiltrate mainstream pop? Or is the band itself getting continually better at its electronic bubblegum grooves? Whatever the reason, each Stereolab album is that much catchier than the one before. The music arrives sounding like it's been in your head for years. And some of it may well have been: the occasional trumpet blasts might as well have come from an old Beach Boys album.
While the Beach Boys made their mark by topping their lush pop with words of sadness and disillusionment, Stereolab graces a warm analog pulse with soft-but-icy female vocals (in French and English) that comment on stagnation, aimlessness and the pointlessness of capitalist life. "Brakhage" finds that voice repeating "We need so damn/Many things/To keep our stupid/Lives going" over what may be the happiest pop groove in history. On "The Flower Called Nowhere" Stereolab sings of "the stagnant mass" in between chipper interjections of la la las over a 6/8 pulse, while the 17-minute "Refractions in the Plastic Pulse" sounds like PET SOUNDS as remixed by Tortoise.