Like an auteur chef of a fancy restaurant, Mat Zo isn't lauded for mastering one dish, but being capable of cooking up several different styles to much avail. From trance, electro, acid house, classic house, DnB and drumstep, Mat doesn't fail to delightfully surprise the listener with each track he serves up, no matter how unexpected or unconventional it may be.
In his latest serving (which is available for free download), Mat Zo decided, “for the hell of it,” to make a bootleg of “Bug a Boo” by Destiny's Child. Maybe it was just gallivanting with the goofy idea of playfully modulating the original vocals that snowballed into a full production, or maybe it was just an excuse for Mat to photoshop his face into a picture of the pop trio to get a sense of what it'd be like if he were a diva, but nevertheless, the result is extraordinary.
As hardstyle-distorted kicks and amen breaks build the track up to warn the listeners to brace themselves for a dirty drop, Mat instead reveals something shinier — a halftime DnB bounce that balances high-pitched vocal samples, funky synth strikes and peripheral arpeggios with glitchy swells and spastic drum-fills. As a break invests further in the melodic neurofunk feel, a second drop brings in a double-time shuffle with more emphasis on the dirty buzzes and squelches. As the third buildup puts more focus on the modulated vocals (which have made the trio sound more like Blackstreet than Destiny's Child, at this point), the third drop shifts gears into an even tougher, hard-lined DnB section with more abrasion (and drum loops) than melody. Lastly, he tails the song with an acapella of the vocals that comically slow down in tempo, because remember, this was all “for the hell of it.”
