Naples, Anthony: Scanners LP

‘Scanners’ lands as Naples’ 6th album since his debut ‘Pill’ on Four Tet’s Text Records a decade ago, and sees him continue to place trust in a classic form of club slink for connoisseurs. A similar sort of referential melting pot to Michael J. Blood is knowingly touched on as Naples sashays between strains of vintage Chicago, Detroit, and NYC house whilst infusing his own tactility and rudeness in the process, with irresistible dancefloor traction as his endgame. By the feel of ‘Scanners’ he’s properly up for it right now, summoning a sort of frothy, pill-belly uplift and sleekly toned drive that would distinguish a golden streak of late ‘90s into ‘00s house music, when it got subtly more streamlined, proggier, and made to play for days on end. It was all cooked up in Queens, NYC, and surely carries a flame for that sound which percolated from NYC onto the likes of Panorama Bar’s influential floor back in the day. In other words it’s reliably hypnotic and infectiously grooving stuff, perfectly tempering the flow from the title tune’s Soundhack-style filter-feathering thru the trance-breaks of ‘Uforia2’, taking in his stride the chef’s kiss garage-house bass skip of ‘Compact’ and jazzier wink of ‘Somebody’, thru wiggly circuit pump in ‘Night’, whilst reserving pill-belly trigger pads to ‘Ampere’ and proggy, electroid tech-house of ‘Bounce’.