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││││││├┐││ ─────────────────────────────────────── music for body and soul
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└┐└──────┘ 09.09.2006
│play in.
artist: Andy Stott
album: Merciless
label: Modern Love
cat: LOVE024CD
year: 2006
genre: Techno
sub-genre: Dubby Tech-House, Minimal, Ambient
source: Cdda
grabber: Eac
encoder: LAME 3.90 --Alt-Preset Standard
quality: VBRkbps / 44,1kHz / Joint-Stereo
size: 60,1 MB
link: http://www.modern-love.co.uk/
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│tracklist.
no. time track title
01 04:25 Florence
02 04:59 Edyocat
03 05:19 Choke
04 03:55 Hi-Rise
05 02:51 Merciless
06 04:07 Come To Me
07 06:43 Hertzog
08 04:49 Boutique
09 03:16 Blocked
10 02:27 Peace Of Mind
total time: 42:51 min
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│release notes.
"Merciless" is the debut album from Manchester's Andy Stott and is
released on the city's own Modern Love label. 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
LP's 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 level 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 grazed-knee take on dubstep, before 'Hi-Rise' lightens the
mood through some carbonated beats and analogue melodies.
Taking a sanguine half-time breather, 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. It's just right. 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.
Having only been making music for a little over two years, Stott
has nonetheless accrued a vast catalogue of tracks - with
"Merciless" meticulously distilled from over a hundred pieces of
music.
Championed by BBC Radio One's Mary Anne Hobbs, Andy Stott is one of
a select few to have been invited back to complete a second session
for her Breezeblock show.
About Andy:
A Mercedes car-painter by day, 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. Obsessed with music since
the age of nine, Andy began learning riffs off hardcore tunes by
ear - soon tiring with the genre and shifting his focus to the twin
maxims of hip hop and drum & bass. Pinpointing the exact moment he
decided that making music was his calling as "1995 - when Mark
(Claro Intelecto) played me Metapharstic by Aphex Twin and it blew
my fucking head off!" Stott immediately commenced a run of piano
lessons and bought a Roland-10 which is still in working-order to
this day.
Consuming records that ranged from the likes of LFO, Autechre and
Kraftwerk through to Harold Budd, Jedi Knights and Depeche Mode,
Andy soon breached the limitations placed on him by the constraints
of his equipment and branched out into the computer market -
finding software that could help him render any sound his
imagination could muster. Rising to prominence on a similar
trajectory to Modern Love's Claro Intelecto, Andy Stott's evolution
as an artist seems entwined alongside his label-mate - with the
pair recently beginning to play live together and the closing track
'Peace of Mind' from 'Merciless' being a stripped down piano cover
of a Claro original... Ranging from gnarled dubstep and solipsistic
strings, through to treated piano and bleached tech - 'Merciless'
seemingly quashes the age-old adage that a jack-of-all-trades is a
master of none with Andy conquering a myriad of styles whilst
instilling each piece with a distinctive fingerprint that marks
them out as Stott.
Andy Stott On myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/andystott_modernlove
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keep your mind, your body and your soul open...
peace.
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nfo materialized by gucci! *nov2OO5