Andy Stott
Andy Stott made his debut for the Modern Love label in 2005 with the 'Replace EP' - a 4 track exposition of his uniquely slanted production style taking in Chi-Town and Motor City influences with an obtuse genetic code at its core. In the years since he has released over a dozen EPs and three albums, remaining loyal to his Manchester roots and sticking with Modern Love for all recordings. Refusing to settle, his output has veered from deepest Techno to broken Garage, slowed down House, hyperactive Footwork, analog Grime and wavey/pop mutations- always referencing his unique stylistic signatures: deep, complex and oddly beautiful.
2011 saw the release of two EPs 'Passed Me By' and 'We Stay Together' - companion pieces which saw a shift of sound into ever more frayed territory, slowing the tempos down for a set of tracks that grabbed the attention of many and ended up on countless year-end charts. The following year produced what is by now regarded as a landmark album 'Luxury Problems', - a record that introduced new elements; most notably the vocals of Alison Skidmore, Andy's piano teacher from back in his school days. A combination of accessible yet inherently deviant tropes and a production style which has become more individual and identifiable with the passing of time has attracted a huge amount of interest, with countless features in publications as diverse as Pitchfork, Vogue and the New York Times, as well as appearances at numerous festivals and shows including SXSW, Unsound, Mutek and PItchfork MOMA events continuing to expose his work to an ever-growing and often bewitched audience.
Stott's most recent album ‘Faith In Strangers' was released in late 2014 and once again found the producer taking a sharp stylistic turn, making use of an array of instruments, field recordings, found sounds and vocal treatments to produce a largely analogue variant of hi-tech production styles arcing from the dissonant to the sublime. It's at once the most memorable and oddly cohesive record of his career to date, built and rendered in the spirit of those rare albums that straddle innovation and tradition through darkness and light. The album was voted the number one album of the year for 2014 in Resident Advisor, as well as tagged ‘Best New Music' by Pitchfork and featuring in countless year-end lists by the likes of Fact, Pop Matters, Consequence of Sound, Juno Plus, Gorilla vs Bear, Rolling Stone, The Quietus, Spin and countless others. Following the release of the album, Andy has been busy completely re-building his live set from the ground up - debuting a completely new live approach for his shows in 2015 and beyond.
