Browse by Artist: STOTT, ANDY

Artist:	STOTT, ANDY
Title:	Merciless
Label:	MODERN LOVE (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	LOVE 024CD

This is Manchester-based Andy Stott's debut full-length release on the Modern Love label. Andy Stott's ascent has been astonishingly quick and gained early momentum as his unique combination of crisp beats and fragile melodies combined to mint a sound that was informed by a spectrum of styles, yet remained charmingly idiosyncratic in execution. Put together with a delineated narrative, Merciless clocks in at a little over forty minutes -- and in doing so harks back to the days of classic vinyl LPs where an album could be readily consumed in one sitting. Opening through a cold-water batch of sprawling strings, Merciless kicks off with "Florence" -- wherein a widescreen vista is brought down to piquant levels of detail as thundering piano juxtaposes perfectly with a compacted batch of tech-fingered beats. From here we're taken on a messy journey through a twilight landscape, as the powdery rhythms of "Edyocat" give way to "Choke" and its take on dubstep, before "Hi-Rise" lightens the mood through some carbonated beats and analog melodies. The album's title track is a beautiful piano smudge -- wherein a deceptively simple melody extends with filigree grace to a sonic peak that is neither forced nor overwhelming. Elsewhere, the phone-intro of "Boutique" provides a natural break in the record as the lurching rhythm takes hold of the cranium and refuses to yield. "Blocked" is a furnace blast of blanched dubstep, whilst "Come To Me" takes a cavernous approach which allows the skittering beats to etch deep within the psyche. Closing with a towering strings 'n' piano interpretation of Claro Intelecto's "Peace Of Mind," Andy Stott has consummately proven that mercy is a mightily overrated commodity.

Artist:	STOTT, ANDY
Title:	Unknown Exception
Label:	MODERN LOVE (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	LOVE 050CD

Subtitled: Selected Tracks Vol. 1. This is the second CD release from Manchester's Andy Stott for the Modern Love label, since his 2005 debut, Merciless. This is the first-ever collection of some of Andy Stott's standout vinyl-only releases, remastered by Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin. Andy Stott has developed a unique sound since his debut on Modern Love -- his first demos for the label were heavily influenced by the square bass line techno variations of Claro Intelecto, a longtime friend, mentor, and eventually label-mate and collaborator. His first release, Replace featured a mixture of disciplines that took in elements of Detroit techno and Chicago house and fast found favor with the likes of Kompakt, De:Bug magazine and DJ Lawrence, who fell for Stott's intuitive, warm melodies and padded percussion. From that point on, Stott has continued to shift and adapt his sound to take in ever disparate influences, from the driving techno of Dave Clarke's Red series through to Basic Channel through to dubstep, garage and the minimalism of classic Sähkö. This chameleon-like quality has set Stott apart from his contemporaries, gaining him interest from all quarters of the electronic music scene, championed by Mary Anne Hobbs (recording two sessions for her show), and playing to increasingly large audiences (including several shows at Berghain's legendary Panorama Bar, the Sonar Festival, Bloc Weekend and countless others). His inspired shifts from traditional techno 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 started to dominate the electronic music scene in 2008 alongside the likes of Martyn, Peverelist and T++. This compilation brings together selected tracks dating back to Andy Stott's debut in 2005 and reaches all the way to his most recent material in 2008. Tracks feature here from his most captivating EPs and stream through his fascination with deep, almost uncontainable bass lines and ever-inventive percussive shifts.

Previous Page Index of Artists Next Page