 | Tracklist:
1. Signature
2. New Ground
3. North To South
4. Intermittent
5. Dark Details
6. Execution
7. Passed Me By
Release Date: 05/12/2011 | |
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On 8 Lists
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| Summary: Sweaty, dirty music made for a club from hell. |
Passed Me By is deep. Andy Stott's most recent offering of minimal dub techno sounds absolutely massive yet almost uncomfortably intimate, the heavy bass of "North To South" bearing more than a passing resemblance to a subtly skipping heartbeat while the reverberant low end of "Execution" feels like a cavernous sonic void. Yet unlike Demdike Stare, Stott's labelmate on Modern Love and frequent point of comparison, this is also rhythmically intense stuff. There's atmosphere, of course - lots of it, in fact, occupying a distinctly dark headspace that will be familiar to anybody fortunate enough to have undergone a full listen to Tryptych. But Stott exchanges some of Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty's masterful handling of occult themes for something a bit more danceable - "Dark Details", with its propulsive bass kicks and fitful sub bass, even has a BPM exceeding 130. Mind you, the track is something of an anomaly alongside the record's slower and more druggy tracks, despite obviously being cut from the same musical cloth; for over half of Passed Me By's relatively short 33-minute runtime, Stott is content to dwell in the arresting ambience he has created, his seemingly bottomless beats providing a quietly shuffling pulse.
The approach works marvelously well, despite the occasional flashes of complacency on some of the album's longer tracks. Certainly, the singularity of Stott's vision makes those moments where he doesn't adhere entirely to formula that much more thrilling; "Intermittent" makes excellent use of orchestral samples and - get this - major chords. It's a brief and welcome glimpse of sunshine in Passed Me By's largely monochromatic palette, placed effectively at the midpoint of the album's tracklist. And while this isn't really melodically driven music, Stott has a knack for those haunting, unresolved chords that made Untrue such a stunning listen, and while his deployment of vocal samples can seem a bit elementary, the aforementioned "Execution" benefits greatly from its irregular and clipped blasts of recognizably human sounds...which Stott then proceeds to shroud in the irrepressibly gloomy environment. These songs are bleak, but not oppressively so, Lynchian in its melding of familiar elements of craft with grotesquery. It's tempting to label it as "primitive", what with that understatedly ominous cover art, but that undersells the album's strange immediacy, the way that these tracks feel absolutely familiar in spite of their grave otherworldliness. In this way, Passed Me By shoots straight for that sweet spot subwoofers seem to directly resound through, far down into the inner regions of our bodies. It's deep.
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| Recent reviews by this author | | | |
Album Rating: 4
This short little review is dedicated to Adam Downer.
Digging: Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It | | | Album Rating: 4
Also, you can stream the whole mini-album on Modern Love's soundcloud:
http://soundcloud.com/modernlove/sets/andy-stott-passed-me-by
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Solid review. Have a pos. It is my mission in life to get a Conrad Tao review that is dedicated to me.
Digging: My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
| | | Album Rating: 4
When I write a review for a Disney soundtrack, I'll know exactly who to dedicate it to!
; )
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=D =D =D =D
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Sweet review man.
Sup Irving
Digging: mewithoutYou - Ten Stories Digging: mewithoutYou - Ten Stories
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listened to this just now, was really cool. either 3.5 or 4. will give a few more
| | | Album Rating: 4
spot on review, glad this got some attention.
Digging: Infidel?/Castro! - Bioentropic Damage Fractal | | |
Hey SS. GUESS WHAT I'M WRITING A REVIEW AS WE SPEAK.
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That's awesome
And once again I can't keep my eyes open long enough to wait for it to be posted
guess i'll have to wait til morning to neg it
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Hahahah I'm really struggling with it anyway. It won't be very good, in all probability - my lack of writing/reviewing for the past month and a half is really showing. Honestly, I'm just happy to be back in the loop on this here site.
I will treasure your neg like it were a son of mine.
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this is okay prolly a 3
| | | Album Rating: 3
I fall in love with Conrad and then he writes something like dub techno
Digging: Amon Tobin - Amon Tobin Digging: Amon Tobin - Amon Tobin | | | Album Rating: 3.5
yea this is cool
whats wrong with dub techno
| | | Album Rating: 3
Call me when it exists
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
done
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the first pole record came out in 1998 dude
| | | Album Rating: 3
^I don't get the relevance
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life doesn't abide by genre tags itsjusyt a guide
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Great review Conrad, lol'd @ the 'dub techno' thingy.
Digging: Walknut - Graveforests And Their Shadows
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