Great Stott

I like Andy Stott. A Lot. Hey, that rhymes! Seriously though, Andy is one of the best techno producers to emerge from the UK over the past few years, someone who seems equally at home with the bastard hard acid of 'Demon In The Attic' as the sombre, dubby tones of 'Fear of Heights'. It's been nearly a year since he released his rather excellent debut album, 'Merciless', on Modern Love, so I recently caught up with him (actually what really happened was that I phoned him up at home after he finished work) for a quick chat. It went a little something like this:

How are things?
"It's going allright, thanks. I'm trying to write a lot of different sounding music. I had been doing a lot of tracks recently where the focus was on the bottom end, so now I'm trying to change and use more hooks again."

The last time we spoke, you were just about to release your debut album. How has the last year been?
"It's been interesting all right. I've had a lot more bookings and playing live has been a steep learning curve. I performed at this art festival in Belgium recently which was great and I've done quite a few small gigs in the UK. Last week I was back at the Panorama Bar. That place is ridiculous, it's beyond the realms of anything I've experienced. It opens at midnight and I was playing between 4am and 5am. I had a quick look at the DJ roster and the last one was playing until 2pm the next day! The last time I played there, it was a very straight set, so I thought that I would try something different this time, but the crowd didn't seem to warm to it as much. Maybe there were too many tourists there. Playing at Sonar was also a laugh: I was very nervous because we were on at the same time as Junior Boys, but our tent remained full, there was about 1,000 people there. Playing live is a great way to test new material, and it makes me realise that I need to write a track that’s as angry as ‘Demon In The Attic’ again!”

What's your live set up like?
"It's very compact, just a laptop and an external controller. I intend to buy some hardware, but I haven't started yet. I use Reason for all my productions, it’s really easy to use. A few years ago, I bought a second-hand PC, which had a copy of Reason already installed on it, so I thought I'd give it a go. I suppose I started producing by accident."

What music are you listening to at the moment?
"I don't have the biggest knowledge of the classic techno artists, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Over the past year or so, I've been introduced to Basic Channel, and there have been some comparisons made to my newer work, which I take as a huge complement. I've just discovered SND, these two sound designer guys from Sheffield who have been around for ages and I'm into Wolfgang Vogt’s Gas project on Kompakt because it's proper stripped back music - he uses really nice pads with submerged kick drums."

Speaking of all things dubby, what do you make of the direction that Modern Love is going in?
“I think that we all listen to what the others are putting out, but we definitely haven’t sat down and decided that we’d all go in this direction. Claro (Intelecto) is a mate, but Deepchord is based in the States and I wouldn’t have much contact with him: I don’t think he has even played a gig in Europe yet, but that’s about to change soon. I’ve just given Shlom a bunch of new tracks and his reaction was ‘Jesus, that’s some next-level shit’. We are given a licence to do pretty much what we want - the label would probably even release a gabba track if it was deep enough - but we have talked about it and although Modern Love is doing well, we feel it is time to wipe the slate clean and mess about, see what happens. We could put out some of our leftover tracks, but we don’t want to keep repeating ourselves.”

Do you think that your surroundings has had much effect on your music - is Manchester a techno city?
"No, I wouldn't say so. It rains and is industrial looking, but nearly all of the stuff I listen to isn't from the UK and pretty much all the stuff from the UK I listen to is influenced by German producers."

'Fear of Heights' and 'The Massacre' marked a change of direction for you: was that intentional?
"Yes, that super-slow, stripped back sound is where I want to be a lot at the moment. I even did some dubstep tracks on 'Merciless', but I got bored with that very quickly because it's so formulaic. At the moment, production is happening for me - there have even been times when I've taken my laptop into work to finish off a track. I'm a car spray painter for Mercedes. Mind you, it's taking me a lot longer to produce music now. The bassline and kick for ‘Ceramics’ was done in just twenty minutes and I spent a few days perfecting the arrangement. It was the same with ‘Demon’ – I wrote the acid bassline in a few minutes and was sitting there thinking, ‘what the hell am I going to do with this?’ I'm still trying to write a song that sounds as angry as 'Demon' but without sounding the same."

What's next for you release-wise?
"I've already got one track written and ready for the next album which will be out in summer 08 hopefully. I'll also have some EPs out in the meantime."

Finally, if you had to programme his dream gig, who would be on the line-up (living or dead)?
“You’ve got me on the spot, but Basic Channel would have to play, sharing the bill with Aphex - not his ‘Druqs’ period, more his Analord stuff - along with Theo Parrish and Drexciya.”

Comments

[billy]

Demons in the attic is amazing. That is warehouse techno in a nutshell. Stott is an amazing producer, seems like a real down to earth guy to. I look foreward to hearing his new stuff as well as claro intelectos.

[jig]

Glad to hear he's playing a few gigs. you boys at test will have to book him

[Martin Dust]

Title made me laugh Richard, you best give Tim Barr a call at the NoW with skills like that fella :)

[Brophy]

@ Billy: 'Demons' is one of my favourite records of the past few years - a truly insane piece of music.

@ Jig - the Pogo guys got there first! He's playing for them on December 1st. Should be a great gig.

@ Martin D: Ha ha, thanks, you would never guess that I used to work for a tabloid would you? I didn't know Tim Barr is with NoW. Is he a sub?