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Andy Stott, "Luxury Problems"
I had a very hard time understanding the disproportionate amount of excitement surrounding last year's Pass Me By and We Stay Together EPs, but I have since come around a bit: there are definitely a couple of areas in which Stott truly excels.  In many respects, Luxury Problems essentially picks up exactly where those releases left off, but there is one massive curve-ball: the addition of vocalist Alison Skidmore.  That particular innovation turns out to be a mixed success, but overall the highlights are both more impressive and more frequent this time around.
My favorite element of Stott's work has always been his talent for heavy and hypnotic locked-groove-style rhythms, which he executed most beautifully on "New Ground" from Pass Me By. He recaptures that magic at least twice here, first with the bludgeoning, machine-like pulse of "Numb," and again with the deep metallic throb and break-beat combination in "Sleepless."  The title piece achieves equal success with a slight variation, as a relentless and obsessive down-tempo groove burrows sensually through a cloud of murk and angelic cooing.
In a broad sense, the decision to add a female vocalist was a very good one, as Alison's breathy vocals add some welcome humanity and sexuality to Stott's eerie, slow-moving post-industrial dub techno.  They work best, however, when Andy aggressively chops and loops them, as he does on the aforementioned "Numb."  They also work nicely when they are weirdly floating and disembodied, as they are on "Luxury Problems."
Unfortunately, the balance between Stott's deep, ominous atmospheres and Skidmore's ethereal vocals skews a bit too far towards the latter in a few cases.  For example, if it were not for some grinding metallic textures and wobbly dubstep bass, "Hatch the Plan" would sound uncomfortably like a fairly commercial house single. The closer, "Leaving," also lands a bit far from the mark for me, as Alison's layered, reverb-heavy, and blissed-out vocals share little common ground with the material that precedes them, aside from yet again showcasing Andy's sharp editing and mixing skills.
That curious stylistic schizophrenia rears its head again with the jungle/drum n' bass throwback "Up the Box," which makes it arguably the album's biggest shortcoming: Stott seems to be having some difficulty maintaining a distinctive aesthetic while expanding his sound.  My other primary issue is that Stott's prodigious textural, rhythmic, and editing talents only work when they are in service of strong ideas, which is not always the case–Andy sometimes seems to be trying to force barren motifs into songhood through sheer production wizardry alone.  However, even with those inconsistencies and miscalculations, Luxury Problems has defininitively claimed its spot as my favorite Andy Stott release, as the three songs I like are absolutely killer and Skidmore's human warmth and melodicism have made Stott's vision considerably more dynamic and listenable.
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