- Andy Stott had a busy year in 2006 and he shows no sign of letting up in 2007. If it’s true that he has all but filled the Modern Love hard drive with spare tracks, and if they are anything like what he has already issued, it isn’t hard to imagine the Manchester producer being one of the scene’s biggest names come 2008. But the question is: which scene? His ‘Merciless’ album and his seemingly endless run of 12”s on Modern Love cross-mutated all sorts of club-orientated electro, techno and dub forms, and now with his latest 10” he seems to have struck gold in a minimal vein once only mined by Rhythm and Sound. The two tracks also depart heavily from the past in their brutal bass-heavy slowness, making R&Ss own 10” series seem almost maximal by comparison. A-side ‘Handle With Care’ is underpinned by a slow, pulsating 4-4 kick and a visceral bass thrum, but there’s so much space above and below that you feel you could fall inside. The synth melody probes and tests, the drum hits echo in downward spirals, and everything is yawning, cavernously stoned and inescapable. B-side ‘See in Me’ starts like a cover of R&S’s ‘Outwards’, from their more abstract 12” series, with the same sense of patient, tormented storm pressure. Somehow, incredibly, it’s even slower – a stark dance at death’s door that flickers into bitter life with punched percussion and dub thunder. Isolated snare hits force and bruised keyboards progressively lift the beat to a codeine-white swagger as burning flares fill the vacuum behind. Impressively atmospheric and brooding.
TracklistA Handle With Care
B See In Me