7: Andy Stott - Merciless

Andy Stott has been making music for just two years now. But he has the emotional maturity to put out a triple cd on Planet E or Transmat. You guessed it: this is Detroit techno. But the way it has been adapted to the new millennium can only come from a producer who has mastered his craft up to a point where he does no longer have to learn from anyone. Of course you hear the influences (Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Stefan Robbers, Stasis, Black Dog, Detroit Escalator Company) but it all sounds so personal and, god only knows, so way deep into the crystalline groove.

There is some dubstep on there as well, Stott being the only techno producer who smuggled in a track on Mary Ann Hobbs's Warrior Dubz. Methodologically Stott has many elements in common with Colin Lindo aka Nubian Mindz. He was adopted a few years ago by the West-London broken beat massive, while all along just making his austere version of Detroit techno. And Andy Stott does the same in 2006 with dubstep, so that he can come up with tracks like 'Choke', bringing Chain Reaction and Burial together in a blissed-out but pitch-black night drive of a techno track. Mercilessly beautiful!