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Andy Stott has never strayed far from the sound he first appeared with in 2005 on his debut release: a dark, minimalist and dubby brand of techno. However, categorizing him as a “techno” producer would be reductionist and ultimately insulting, belying the emotional depth of Stott’s work that is particularly evident in new LP Faith In Strangers. All the elements that one normally associates with techno as a genre are certainly utilised throughout, Stott constructing the album around a backbone of industrial ambience and heady repetition. Yet rather than becoming mired in these functional aspects of production, the record displays a level of humanism and emotional depth that distinguishes Stott from his contemporaries. In Faith In Strangers the Mancunian producer has succeeded in releasing a wonderfully formed album that sounds like a Burial record separated from those trademark skittering drums, or a Cocteau Twins LP built along a Detroit assembly line.
The opening track Time Away paints a spectral landscape for the rest of the record to play out upon, before segueing into the album highlight Violence. The entire album is a meditative exercise in noise, exploring the dualism between silence and cacophony. Violence is exemplary of this, the track opening as a solemn dirge before transforming into a contemplative piece of trap undercut by booming percussion and a searing guillotine synth. Alison Skidmore, Stott’s former piano teacher, supplies the ghost in the machine with a voice, and her vocals are weaved beautifully around Stott’s haunting rhythms.
Science and Industry, both in title and composition, sounds like Movement-era New Order, set as it is against a hollow yet driven drumline and filled out with a piercing cold character. No Surrender is a crystalline piece of bombastic electronica and How It Was is an almost tribal piece of shadowy and mechanical techno. The juxtaposition of the industrial and the modern against the primal is a dominant theme within the album, obvious even on the record’s sleeve.
Damage sees Stott straying into trap once more: his harsh and gritty take on the genre serves up a beat that would have fitted perfectly on Kanye West’s Yeezus. Faith In Strangers, the title track, is a glorious departure from the rest of the album. Oddly enough given its environment the song is a true pop gem, hidden as it is under a dark and dubby guise. Final track Missing feels like the theme tune to a classic movie, albeit a theme tune that foregoes Gene Kelly in favour of early 90s trip hop. The piece wouldn’t sound completely amiss included amongst Vangelis’ inspired soundtrack for Blade Runner, one of the great cinematic scores.
The album in its totality is a work of stark, sparse beauty. With Faith In Strangers, Stott has produced one of the most consistent and challenging techno LPs of the year, if of course we allow ourselves to label it as such. Stott has been nearly ten years in the game: here’s to another decade.
