Andy Stokes - Existence

Hear The Track Here

Considering that, of all the genres, techno is my main hate figure, Andy Stokes got away pretty lightly when I reviewed the very first track from him. Dance Floor Confusion (February 2009) escaped the Gilmore scalpel by dint of the fact that the track was more dance than techno, at least in my opinion. It worked very well through a big sound system and that's the main thing with music of this type; listening to this with headphones while you are sitting on your butt is the same as going to bed with your socks on. Pointless. Which is exactly what I feel most about the techno genre, it's all been done ya see. Having said that, MP3 Unsigned always has a population of techno heads and I have found some artists there worth checking out.

I do have a sneaking regard for the time honoured 303 bass sound and Existence has a great example of it, and some lovely 303 filtering to add to the mix and that always pleases me. Despite some comments about the kick sound on the track I had no problem with it; it cuts where it needs to and lays back where it doesn't although I do agree that the track could have done with some percussive variation now and again. See, one the of the main culprits for my dislike of the genre is the absolute sameness of the drums.

Four to the floor kick, a tsk tsk from the hi hats and that's pretty much your lot and when you have a track stretching out to almost six minutes, the drums can 'plod' to the max. It helps to festoon this basic structure with lots of pretty (and not so pretty) electronica geegaws and that - for me anyway - is where Andy Stokes comes into his own. Having lived with this track for a while I find its actually a blend of trance and techno and, in this case it works a treat, and I wouldn't say that about most. The other main musical gripe I have (aside from techno) is trance and considering this is both, Andy should feel chuffed to escape the knives yet again. But I'll be waiting for the next one bucky....

Recommended blend of trance and techno.