- With the release of his fabric mix last year, Levon Vincent wondered why, of all of his New York/New Jersey cohorts, Joey Anderson was the one yet to receive his dues. Arguably it was down to the sheer strangeness of his output: even by the standards of DJ Qu, Fred P et al, his music is idiosyncratic in the extreme. Fortunately, 2013 was the year that the wider underground embraced that idiosyncrasy. A torrent of singles have served to raise Anderson's profile, and cemented the calling cards of his style: the strange, fidgety melodies; the balletic grooves; the stubbornly ambiguous tone, liable to flicker between darkness and light. Fall Off Face for Dekmantel is as good as any.
"Repulsive" is the most challenging of the three tracks. The chief protagonist is its bassline, one of those labyrinthine synth sequences that, combined with meandering chords and Anderson's trademark hi-hat shuffle, generates a feeling of dance floor vertigo. "Sky's Blessings" is a touch more grounded, its smeared string melodies cultivating a fragile widescreen vibe familiar from the exquisite "Press Play." But "Heaven's Archer" is Anderson's tour de force. For the first few minutes, synth figures seemingly from two different tunes play a gentle tug of war. Just when we've grown accustomed to the discomfort, almost-Kraftwerkian synth arps bluster in and send the thing entirely off balance. Anderson's party trick is to bring it all together, just about, in the closing moments. House music isn't exactly renowned for its narrative ingenuity, but Anderson seems to be on to something here.
TracklistA1 Repulsive
A2 Sky's Blessings
B Heaven's Archer