Strumpetocracy // Madteo

Label: Nu Earth Kitchen

Format: 12”/Digital
Release Date: 11/03/13

Strumpetocracy is the most recent release from New York based Matteo Ruzzon aka Madteo. Released via Seattle based imprint Nu Earth Kitchen, the EP amalgamates an array of typically oddball sounds into Ruzzon’s signature brand of abstract house.

There is a sense of foreboding about opener ‘Laissez-Faire Couture’, dark paranoid dial tones slink between staggering rhythms. There is a hypnotic quality to Ruzzon’s grooves perhaps created by the fact that they never quite settle into a familiar pattern. Such rhythms are in theory similar to those of Kassem Mosse or Cupp Cave, but there is still an undeniably unique quality to how Ruzzon’s drums feel constantly just out of reach.

The equally furtive, if slighlty less ominous ‘Mr Grecko’ makes use of degraded horn samples and sparse, stuttered percussion. As with Ruzzon’s inaugural release for Joy O & Will Bankhead’s Hinge Finger, the track has as much in common with hip-hop as it does house music. Its leftfield beat-driven orientation wouldn’t sound out of place as some kind of bonus track on an early cLOUDDEAD album.

The final three tracks centre around ‘We Doubt (You Can Make It)’, the original mix being placed alongside two remixes from Dresvn, and DJ Sotofett, a producer with whom Madteo has collaborated several times previously; their collaborative 12” ‘There’s Gotta Be A Way’ in particular gaining significant support as of late.

The Madteo original is a pointed micro-house jam, vaguely reminiscent of the work of Jan Jelinek via its use of granular textures and early minimal style bass warbles. Undoubtably the most optimistic of the Madteo cuts, the track revolves around a disorientating spliced vocal sample which is put to varying degrees of use through the two ensuing remixes.

DJ Sotofett’s remix puts an intricate melodic slant on the original, ringing of piano leading up to a crazed flute solo. Sotofett also manages to align Ruzzon’s off kilter rhythms into a more club friendly concoction, with thumping four to the floor kicks and shuffling hats. Sotofett’s interpretation couldn’t be further from Dresvn’s, which sinks deeper into the textures of the original, opiate chords joined by cavernous atmospherics, and ethereal melodies.

• Published
• Mar 20, 2013

• Credits
• Words by Theo Darton-Moore