Music Arcades: Stereolab: Dot and Loops

The nineties were a weird time in music. Probably the decade in which I was least engaged with the "scene", whatever that is, mostly because scenes like Britpop and Drum & Bass didn't really do it for me. So it might be a paradox that I've got more albums from that decade than from any other — but in fact this comes down to (a) having more money in the nineties than the eighties, and (b) not having calmed my collecting and switched to digital as I have in the last six years. Then there's (c) that I caught up on a lot of the nineties at the start of this decade when the albums were discounted in Fopp. So it was that I bought all my Stereolab albums (1, 2) in 2000 and 2001. Don't know how I missed them all through the nineties; they did five Peel sessions for heaven's sake.

Trouble is, buying an album because Fopp happens to have it for a fiver is not the smartest strategy. How I wish I'd had Andy's advice back then. Only… I listened to Peng! on Spotify earlier today and… it sounded pretty similar to Dots and Loops, if slightly more lo-fi. Probably wasn't paying attention properly.

There are moments in Dots and Loops that sound a bit like Tortoise (another band that my radar missed for a few years). But it's the tongue-in-cheek lounge stylings that strike me strongest. Those, and the further extension of the alt.pop miniseries of the last few days. It's all down to the roll of the dice, I promise.