Vase

When LA label Acid Test started imprint, Avenue 66, they looked to New Jersey house mystic Joey Anderson for an opening salvo. He delivered the modern psych-dance masterpiece Above The Cherry Moon (2013). On "If One Cares, They Act Different" Anderson works with a lead that could score an unsettling '80s horror flick, eventually introducing his signature quicksilver synths and abstract, jacking drum patterns. "Peace There" takes the listener far out with square-wave basslines and raspy hats. On "The Vase", Anderson reins things in, but even his bittersweet, relatively straight-head deep house tracks present an odd paradox.