For most, Andy Stott established his audience outside rarefied deep techno listeners with the breakthrough "We Stay Together" of 2011 on the UK's Modern Love imprint. In rapid succession the following years saw appearances in Decibel Festival alongside label-mates Demdike Stare's own manifestation of all things Italian Giallo and French Fantastique for their live score to Jean Rollin's surrealist erotic-horror classic "La Vampire Neu". Returning again, some 16 months later in a second label showcase with the duo, this visit to North America showcasing Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker's brobdingnagian body of work, what The Quietus called "An Unholy Matrimony: In Interview with Demdike Stare", that comprised the collected "Elemental" series. On both occasions their collaborative performances delivering some of the most assured, abstract, darkly rich post-techno currently being made on the planet. Absorbing influences equally from mid-Century Modernism, Concrete and late 1970s and 80s Industrial, alongside two decades of British underground Techno, Bass and Garage music, the following "Test Pressing" 12" series showcased some of the densest subterranean atmospheres being generated in contemporary dance music. These contrasting poles are explored more explicitly, with their dance music signifiers more boldly displayed in their collaborative Millie & Andrea project via distended takes on UK Bass music and Jungle.
As a date in their current US tour this week's night at The Crocodile likely won't compare with such genre-bending collaborative showcases as those of years previous. Nonetheless, we can anticipate another dual-pronged warping of dance music into a corporeal/cerebral body-impacting experience of noise and rhythm unlike most anything else heard in the genre. A process Stott detailed at-length in his interviews for FACT Mag, "Tearing Up the Rulebook: Making Mistakes is the Most Exciting Thing You Can Do" and "Andy Stott: Lost and Found" for Resident Advisor. Stott's previous full length, "Luxury Problems" making The Wire's 2012 Rewind and the essential British magazine hosting a significant interview with him that same year. His newest, "Too Many Voices" continues the work heard first on 2014's "Faith in Strangers" in it's merging of dissonant and atonal slabs of sound jostling against fragmented song music and female voice, with nods equally to the ethereal female pop of early 4AD, as the austerity of German Kosmische and the characteristic negative space that defines much Detroit Techno of the 1980s. This set of albums making a marked stylistic turn for the producer, one that has been well received in the pages of, Boomkat, FACT Mag, The Quietus and Resident Advisor, all enthusiastic in their significant praise.
