- Matrixxman, AKA San Francisco's Charles Duff, had a dizzyingly productive 2014, turning out seven EPs for labels including Delft, Kraftek and Spectral Sound. His final release of 2014 is his first for Dekmantel, and from the get-go he feels like a natural fit for the Amsterdam label. Nubian Metropolis finds Duff setting aside the Balearic/Chicago house of some of his other recent work and getting into character as a Dutch electro-robot, and doing it with impeccable style.
The EP's second track, "Cybernetic Impact," may even be named in tribute to I-F's influential internet radio station Cybernetic Broadcasting System, which closed in 2008. The cap certainly fits snugly if it is, with its primitive bass squelch, whistling high notes and clipped drums sounding a lot like something that would have hummed through the speakers of my old work PC circa 2005. "System Blackout" is cut from similar cloth but is assembled in a more heads-down, experimental way, with clattering drums and bleeps flickering around Kosmik Kommando-style voices. "Sermons" and "Siamese Twins," meanwhile, take things in spacier directions, their soaring pads elevating the simple, rough-hewn bass and percussion that underpin them.
TracklistA1 Sermons
A2 Cybernetic Implant
B1 Siamese Twins
B2 System Blackout