Album Notes

New York City’s high voltage wonderboy Matthew Duffy arrives somewhere at the nexus of blissful electro pop and hard-boiled indie rock. Drawing inspiration from a dynamic array of musical styles– with frequent comparisons to New Wave pioneers Depeche Mode fused with the soulful intensity of Kate Bush – Matthew Duffy is forging new sonic territory.

After graduating from NYU’s venerable Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in dance, Matthew turned down the opportunity to join a dance company in pursuit of something more personal. Since music has always been the central force in his life, singing and songwriting became the focus to which he turned and remains intensely devoted.

With a cadre of top-shelf producers in tow, he released his groove-oriented debut album Here I Come (2004), which yielded the Billboard dance chart-topping hit “Electric Shock.” The must-see video for that song is a jaunty, pop homage to 80s electro, fun-house flicks like Tron and Xanadu. The album received nationwide attention when the song “Until The End” was featured in a steamy scene on TV’s groundbreaking series Dante’s Cove. Matthew recently hosted the popular music video show NewNowNext on LOGO, where his video for “Little Bird” attracted a passionate following. While his earlier album was what Matthew describes as “a mixtape of my life at the time,” his upcoming release The Healing Machine finds him expanding the idea of what it means to be an electronic artist in a world that is spinning so fast, nothing really is as it seems.

The first single off the album, “#1 Enemy” is a seething, epic track about justice, about seeking out and getting the proverbial bad guy. Think of it as dance music with a conscience. “I want my work to incite change,” he says of his music, “to inspire the demoralized, the underdog.” The guiding principle behind The Healing Machine is this idea of music’s curative power to set you free. “When I didn’t have the answer, when I didn’t understand, I turned to music first to heal me. Music helped me find my way, gave me the power to become who I am meant to be.”