Naples, Anthony: Chameleon LP

Shimmering with iridescent strums and loosely harnessed to stumbling drums, Naples’ 3rd album ‘Chameleon’ is defined by a marked difference to the micro-house dub tech of its predecessor ‘Fog FM.’ It’s music for the dying embers of summer, heralding longer evenings with a carefully toned collection of 12 tracks that refine the sehnsucht of his sound into woozier shapes puckered with bluesy melodic cadence and squinted with a kosmiche gaze. For anyone following the NYC-based artist thus far, it’s surely a richly rewarding new extension of his sound that lends itself to lonesome strolls and porchside pipe puffing alike. One might not guess it from the accomplished quality of the music, but this is the first time Naples wrote music for instruments first, following his nose for a style of lissom ambient reverie that’s perhaps the most spirited and distinguished since he debuted nearly a decade ago with Mister Saturday Night Records and helped shape a new movement of para-deep house and ambient from USA via some dozen singles with everyone from The Trilogy Tapes to his own labels, Proibito and ANS. Working to a masterful sunday night sound, if you will, ‘Chameleon’ sprawls out with arpeggiated tendrils and searching guitars lines from the faded lean of ‘Primo’ to the early ‘90s ambient bop of ‘I Don’t Know If That’s Just Dreaming’ , laying down syrupy sweet soul in ‘Devotion (SSL Mix)’ and swaying from the crooked hip hop drums of ‘Chameleon’ recalling Dante Carfanga’s Express Rising project, to amorphous chromatic whorls reminding of BoC’s wow and flutter in ‘Bug’ and ‘Hydra’, with exquisite vignettes like ‘Full O’ Stars’ and the thizz of ‘Sizzlin’ epitomising its low-key but heady ephemeral nature.