Long Play: Andy Stott - Late Loop

Long Play is our event series that celebrates new and noteworthy releases and gives the album format the attention it deserves. At our long play sessions, we select an album that deserves our full attention and play it from front to back. We listen together in silence, and discuss what we heard afterwards. This time we are listening to Andy Stott’s first album in five years: Late Loop. Andy Stott is a British electronic music producer and musician from Manchester, England, signed to the Modern Love record label. He is known for his dark, bass-heavy, and experimental style of electronic music. For this album, he set off with no plan, just a few parameters: no basslines, no reverb, no effects except for a delay unit. The production process and method were loose and primitive. It was like learning a new language, a full reset. For a while, it was an experimental drone album, then something like brass band concrète, or what could have been an art installation. Each version got close enough to being finished, but everything was mostly texture, and texture wasn’t it. He wanted songs. The songs, featuring vocals by old and new collaborators, mostly about a separation, were arranged, discarded, sometimes resurrected. Eventually, it turned into what Late Loop now is, every stitch on show. Album playback starts at 20:15