Andy Stott returns from a five-year break with the album Late Loop

Andy Stott has ended a five-year break from studio releases. Late Loop arrives October 30 on Modern Love, the Manchester producer's first record since Never the Right Time in 2021, and the opening track from it, "Something in Mind", is out with a video by Kitty Handley.

The album was made with a deliberately short list of tools. A press release notes that Stott worked with no basslines, no reverb, and no effects at all beyond a single delay unit, which is a severe set of rules for a producer whose earlier work leaned on thick low end and long tails of room sound.

It also changed shape while he made it. The project began as an experimental drone record and passed through a stage the press material describes as something like brass band concrete, before Stott decided he wanted the finished thing led by songs rather than textures.

That decision brought two voices in. Alison Skidmore and Elaine Howley feature on every song on the album, with Howley singing on "Something in Mind". Skidmore has worked with Stott before, and her presence here runs across the whole record rather than sitting in one guest spot.

Late Loop holds eight tracks: "Cold Welcome", "Something in Mind", "Sunday Fast", "2024-2", "The Hardest Thing", "Mirror Signal", "Songbird" and the title song. Myriam Boulos shot the cover art. The record sits squarely in the electronic end of the Modern Love catalogue, and the October date is on the release calendar.