Album Review: Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

Andy Stott
Luxury Problems
Rating: Woof Daddy

This past weekend I was up in the North Georgia mountains with a close friend and some of his friends I hadn't met before. My friend Greg has a thing where he doesn't like silence and needs either the TV on or music in the background. As the cabin did not have cable/satellite, and the only music was an outdated boom box, I was asked to play music off my MacBook. It is a always a dicey proposition for me to play music as my tastes lean a little over to the alternative side, but I always have some playlists of more "normal" music just for these situations. But still, what I consider "normal" still is not heard as such, and I got a lot of confused reactions throughout the weekend. Which gave me a long time to think about what people like. And why do I like something, and consider it some of the best music I have ever heard, but other people look at me like I am crazy? There really is no rhyme or reason to any of it, to be honest, it all comes down to I know what I like when I hear it. I suppose for me I have constant musical ADD, and don't like hearing the same thing over and over again, so I am constant looking out for music that excites and shocks me. I want to hear something unusual or unexpected.

Manchester producer Andy Stott will never be considered "normal" by any stretch of the imagination, and that is why I find his music so interesting and intoxicating. Over the course of two EPs last year, We Stay Together and Passed Me By, Stott put out some of the most challenging and haunting techno to be released. Working from a very minimal palette, and bordering on spartan, his music vaguely insinuated itself, always a feeling of creeping dread in the background. His unsettling compositions keeping you on edge, never quite sure how they will play out. On his new full length Luxury Problems, Stott doesn't change up his sound much at all, but adds different elements that move his sound in new directions. Working with classically trained vocalist Alison Skidmore (who incidentally taught Stott piano), her operatic vocals add a needed human touch to the frequently ominous and dense tracks.

Skidmore's soft voice is multi-tracked over a rush of spectral synths and muted programming on opener "Numb," sounding like a ghost trying to be heard from the dark beyond.



Her voice is of angelic mercy on the throbbing pulse of "Hatch The Plan."



On "Lost and Found" her classical training is evident, as her rich operatic tones add contrast and texture to the ominous push and pull of chugging rhythms and creepy synths.



While on closer "Leaving" she takes on an ethereal guise as harsher bass heavy notes try to overtake the soft washes of keyboards.



Stott doesn't completely forgo instrumentals on Luxury Problems, but this time the focus is more on the mixture of sounds and vocals. I love on "Up The Box" he subverts drum and bass into his own perverted industrial mixture, never letting the beat go where you think it is going,



or the clattering drone of "Expecting" which builds in intensity over its 8 minute run time.



I am not so blind that I can't see that most people will not like Andy Stott's music. It is a little too deconstructed for most people who might not see/understand how this all builds from the past into something different and interesting. But unlike this previous EPs, this is not typically "difficult" music, there are melodies and beats, and it can be fairly accessible. For those who like their music a little off the well beaten path, Luxury Problems is one of the best dub techno records of the year.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.