Andy Stott

Produced slowly and meticulously over the last 12
months, these seven tracks are the closet thing we've
had to a new album from Andy Stott since the release
of his debut full-length Merciless five years ago.
Taking influence from an array of seemingly incoherent
noises, from the indefinable and unforgettable mindtricks
of Arthur Russell to the slowhouse of Kassem
Mosse, from the alternate VHS realities of James
Ferraro and Jamal Moss to the Linn Drum classics of the
vintage Prince era - these seven tracks create their own
pace and agenda, largely shying away from the
dancefloor in favour of something more complex and
hard to define.
Following on from the tribal malfunctions of opening
intro Signature, New Ground heads into a chasm of
layered loops, creating a decimated and re-wired funk
template coloured in with frayed percussion and
dislodged vocal samples. North To South starts off from
similar ground but adds a shuffling vibe at a deceptively
intoxicated 110 bpm.
Intermittent is something altogether different, taking
perfectly formed Boogie templates and screwing with
them until nothing quite fits, brittle elements floating in
and out of time yet somehow keeping it together,
before Dark Details delivers the most dancefloor
compatible six minute stretch of the set, all clanging
stabs and dense percussion, somewhere between
Shackleton and Bam Bam.
Execution and Passed Me By end things off on a slowed
down tip, the former deploying an anaesthetised and
padded 4/4 template sunk deeper into the abyss by
deformed, time-stretched vocals, the latter ending off
proceedings with a more delicate palette, letting go of
all that pent-up emotion with nothing but that rumbling
low-end and some strings for company.

New Ground

North To South

Intermittent

Dark Details

Faith In Strangers’ was written and produced between January 2013 and June 2014, and was edited and sequenced in late July this year. Making use of on an array of instruments, field recordings, found sounds and vocal treatments, it’s a largely analogue variant of hi-tech production styles arcing from the dissonant to the sublime. The first two tracks recorded during these early sessions bookend the release, the opener ‘Time Away’ featuring Euphonium played by Kim Holly Thorpe and last track ‘Missing’ a contribution by Stott’s occasional vocal collaborator Alison Skidmore who also appeared on 2012’s ‘Luxury Problems’. Between these two points ‘Faith In Strangers’ heads off from the sparse and infected ‘Violence’ to the broken, downcast pop of ‘On Oath’ and the motorik, driving melancholy of ‘Science & Industry’ - three vocal tracks built around that angular production style that imbues proceedings with both a pioneering spirit and a resonating sense of familiarity. Things take a sharp turn with ‘No Surrender’- a sparkling analogue jam making way for a tough, smudged rhythmic assault, while ‘How It Was’ refracts sweaty Warehouse signatures and ‘Damage’ finds the sweet spot between RZA’s classic ‘Ghost Dog’ and Terror Danjah at his most brutal. ‘Faith in Strangers’ is next and offers perhaps the most beautiful and open track here, its vocal hook and chiming melody bound to the rest of the album via the almost inaudible hum of Stott’s mixing desk. It provides a haze of warmth and nostalgia that ties the nine loose joints that make up the LP into the most memorable and oddly cohesive of Stott’s career to date, built and rendered in the spirit of those rare albums that straddle innovation and tradition through darkness and light.

Faith In Strangers

Damage

Violence

No Surrender

'We Stay Together' is a brand new doublepack from Andy Stott, a companion piece of sorts to the radical inversions of the 'Passed Me By' EP released earlier this year. Its predecessor left many heads dazed upon impact - in the best possible sense - and these six tracks, produced in its wake, amp the pressure to throttling degrees. Entering the digital compression chamber of 'Submission' you become a willing participant, before the lights are cut and you're forced to adjust to the humid atmosphere and bruising, muscle-contracting darkroom throb of 'Posers'. Suitably initiated, the EP's fearless centrepiece 'Bad Wires' plunges into full on mud-party mode, dropping the tempo while intensifying the kinaesthetic funk with slow, clusterf*cked syncopation until you're drowning in synthesized oil and crushed-glass textures. Fully submerged by 'We Stay Together (Part One)' time becomes elasticated like worn VHS tape, calling to mind Jamal Moss and James Ferraro soundtracking a rave in a sodden, flooded sauna, before inescapably tumbling into the sheer black hole of 'Cherry Eye' and left to the slompy jack of 'Cracked'. Blatantly, we rate this record massively, and although it's not for everyone, those looking for a more visceral, intense form of dancefloor pressure would do very well to check in

Posers

Bad Wires

We Stay Together (Part One)

As "Merciless" slowly slips into its final, cinematic crescendo, the promise of more to come from one of the most gifted, enchanting producers in the world today drifts into view. This is an album that will appeal to fans of everyone from Villalobos to Murcof, Lawrence to Carl Craig, Luciano to Erik Satie - without exception making itself one of the most effortlessly involving albums 0f 2006 and beyond. 

Florence

Edyocat

Hi-Rise

Come To Me

Hertzog

Boutique

Andy Stott has developed a unique sound since his debut for the Modern Love label back in 2005. His first demos were heavily influenced by the square-bassline techno variations of labelmate Claro Intelecto. His restless shift from traditional Techno and House blueprints through to the bottom-heavy signatures of Dubstep and the steppers arrangements of Garage have also placed him at the forefront of the dubstep/techno hybrid sounds that have continued to dominate the electronic music scene since 2008. This compilation brings together selected tracks dating back to Andy Stott's debut back in 2005 and reaching all the way to his most recent material.

Long Drive

Credit

Massacre

Andy Stott

.C.