Bleep

On his debut album for Ghostly International, Charles Duff, the San Francisco producer behind Matrixxman, explores the darker sides of humanity. Having caught our attention with promising EPs for Ghostly International sister label Spectral Sound, squeaking house productions for Dutch imprint Dekmantel and of course the material for his own Soo Wavey Records (which he co-runs with Vin Sol), Homesick allows for his sound to come into its own in the most coherent way to date. Weaving his trademark element of squeezing 909 patterns into ambient frameworks, he opens up a world of rich associations. His interest in the inherently ambiguous relationship between the human and the machine finds expression in the deep punching kicks throughout the album, and in Detroit references such as 'Packard Plant', one of the city's former automobile-manufacturing factories. His obsession with artificial intelligence is reflected in 'Annika's Theme', essentially an homage to an elusive neuroscientist conducting research that once might have a significant impact on humanity - until then we'll settle for the reliably visionary output quality imprints like Ghostly International keep delighting us with.