It’s been a particularly exciting couple of years for San Francisco DJ/producer Charles McCloud Duff, whose work as Matrixxman only becomes more potent and inimitable with each consecutive release. And there have been quite a few. Working with labels from around the world (Dekmantel, Unknown to the Unknown, Fifth Wall, and others), Duff carved out a musical identity based around clubready EPs and 12”s full of jacking, acidtouched house and techno. Last year’s Amulet EP found Matrixxman harnessing his tastes for smooth retro styles and edgier contemporary ideas into four eclectic productions, which debuted on Spectral Sound to widespread acclaim. Now with StuxNet, his second 12” for the Ghostly imprint, the shapeshifting artist strips his music down to its essentials, and brings along techno vets Hieroglyphic Being and Silent Servant to deliver a hulking pair of remixes.
Matrixxman’s “StuxNet” arrives in two distinct halves: deep and driving stomper “Part I” and a rubbery, percussive groove as “Part II”. Each section operates independently of the other, and yet both share vital DNA sourced from early acid jams and Duff’s refined hardware techniques. So if the StuxNet originals prove Matrixxman to be a versatile and uncompromising voice in dance music, then the remixes speak to the insanely talented company he keeps. Each taking on a cut from the Amulet EP, Chicago’s Hieroglyphic Being gives “Venetian Mask” a heaping dose of his dystopic psychedelia, and Sandwell District affiliate Silent Servant turns in a darkly meditative take on “The Caravan”. It all adds up to a fourtrack record which makes for another confident step in Matrixxman’s steady rise to prominence.
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