Millie & Andrea - Drop the Vowels

Millie & Andrea

Drop the Vowels

31 March 2014

Modern Love

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

Manchester’s Andy Stott has had quite the year, releasing perhaps the greatest electronica album in a decade with Faith in Strangers in November, and Drop the Vowels under the name Millie & Andrea back in March with label-mate Miles Whittaker (the “Millie” to Stott’s “Andrea”). Where Faith in Strangers was about redefining what electronica is and could be about, smashing boundaries, and bridging the gap between techno and classical, Drop the Vowels is about having fun in the studio and being completely ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, Drop the Vowels is just as dark as anything Stott does, but one listen reveals that it was created in an atmosphere of carefree creativity without any pretence of making an important statement.

 

If you ever downloaded HammerHead Rhythm Station back in the day, the freeware six-track sequencer that let you create your own techno tracks (in stunning mono!), you’ll recognize about half the samples used here. As a tribute to late-‘90s techno, DtV is a blast. The tracks feel improvised but not directionless—perhaps the result of hours of jamming, then a quick two or three takes dedicated to tape before moving on to the next creation. Everything here is in start contrast to the carefully composed perfectionist pieces to be found on Faith in Strangers, but that contrast is what makes the latter album all the more impressive: Stott can function in settings both improv and non- and emerge as a master of each, where most other producers never come close to mastering one or the other.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger