For a dance music producer, Anthony Naples has always made albums with unusually broad appeal—the kind that even your coworker who went to a Four Tet show once might appreciate. Each LP has some kind of unifying theme or inspiration, like ’90s downtempo on Orbs, nighttime radio on Fog FM, or the surprising inclusion of live instruments on Chameleon, an experiment in writing music, rather than producing it. Scanners stands out for its lack of context or backstory. Even the accompanying note on Bandcamp merely says that it features “ten new songs.” The New York artist’s sixth album is his most straightforward yet: ten new songs indeed, exploring a subtle and spacious take on dance music with polished surfaces and just the right amount of melody. No experiments, no interludes, no left turns, yet it works from front to back nearly as well as any of his more artsy records.
It’s instructive that Naples uses the terms “songs” rather than “tracks.” Scanners is uniform—each track has the same structure and comes in at an average of around six minutes—but Naples approaches them all with a songwriterly touch, as on the pumping “Night.” On the surface, “Night” is almost tribal house, that most functional of subgenres, with a pots-and-pans drum pattern that moves horizontally like a crab scuttling across the sand. But there’s so much more going on underneath, including a choppy melody that weaves around dramatic chord stabs, and a liberal application of effects that makes the tracks feel live. A texture is always changing, the filter envelope is always on the move. A sound rarely stays the same for more than a few bars in Naples’ music.
When it comes to sound, Scanners is one of Naples’ supplest records. The tracks feel unusually roomy; the huge kick drums are EQ’d way down, so that they mostly occupy the lowest frequencies. That leaves the midrange open for squelchy acid-style basslines and clay-putty chords on “Ampere,” or fuzzed-out leads on “Mushy”—which lands somewhere between trance and electroclash—or jaunty keyboards on the cutesy “Somebody.” That one reminds me of old tracks like “Mad Disrespect” or “Abrazo,” but with a newfound sense of humor. There’s a level of exaggeration in the way the piano twinkles, stretches, and wobbles that reminds me of artists on the classic minimal label Perlon (say, Markus Nikolai).
The hulking rhythm section, which is Scanners’ most modern touch, betrays what is actually some of the most intricate material in Naples’ discography. There’s an attention to detail and chic sound design that feels very late ’00s—again, Perlon. The opening title track sounds a lot like Huerco S.’s fantastic 2024 mnml throwback LP under the alias Loidis—sleek and vaguely iridescent, with a sound that resembles nothing in the real world yet brings to mind snatches of luxury. Think a cocktail bar, or a dark, neon-lit lounge, a portal to the dance music universe of the past when cool, globally influential parties happened on Monday nights in the Meatpacking District instead of warehouses in Maspeth and Ridgewood. From the quirky piano on “Somebody” to the punchy, minimalist house of “Compact,” this music will either read as timeless or retro, depending on how long you’ve been in the game. Either way, it hits.
It’s tempting to read Scanners as a reaction to the over-the-top techno that rules clubs from New York to Berlin—especially with fellow producers like Huerco S. getting on the less-is-more train—but the reality is that it’s probably just what Naples felt like making at the time. He’s always followed his muse wherever it took him, but with restraint and surety. It’s that confidence and finesse that make his “guitar album” as good as his meat-and-potatoes dance records. Everything he does sounds good because he knows what sounds good, which is why you can get so much pleasure out of a simple filter effect or the zesty spin of a pitchwheel. Scanners is one of his least flashy records, one that requires you to burrow deep into the details—or just dance to it—and that’s why it’s so strong. Naples has always excelled at the dance music album because he doesn’t try too hard, and Scanners is great dance music. Nothing more, nothing less.
