Luxury Problems

Andy Stott is a Manchester-based producer of dub and techno music who has released three albums with the Modern Love label. Despite being significantly more ambient and less knotty than Andy Stott's 2011 releases, which were combined and expanded that December for Passed Me By/We Stay Together, Luxury Problems is nearly as spine-chilling. Its rhythms are fluid more often than coagulated, and there's an additional human element granted by the voice of opera-trained singer Alison Skidmore. The sense of intimacy is present from the opening "Numb," beginning with a looped intonation of "touch," a fragment of which takes the role of hi-hat before an industrial-sounding thrum -- something like a mechanical malfunction -- enters as a four-four beat. It's dark ambient, industrial techno, and trip-hop all at once. Preview the entire album here: buy your copy of Luxury Problems here. Check him out spinning in Berlin's Boiler Room