Anthony Naples

Anthony Naples is known for his transportive distortions of house, techno, and ambient music. Categorized upon arrival as “outsider house” with the dizzying, rough-hewn “Mad Disrespect” (2012), the producer and DJ has put the whimsically coined designation farther behind him with each successive EP and album. Following his launch of the label offshoot of the Brooklyn party Mister Saturday Night with his acclaimed first release, Naples has recorded for well-regarded labels including The Trilogy Tapes and Text — the latter issued his first album, Body Pill (2015) — though the bulk of what has followed resides with his own Proibito and ANS imprints. Subsequent full-lengths like the biennial run of Fog FM (2019), Chameleon (2021), and Orbs (2023) have enabled the producer to more deeply explore slower tempos and richer atmospheres — informed by moody post-punk and dub — with fewer abrasions.
Originally from Florida, Naples grew up hearing Miami bass and later got into punk, noise, and experimental electronic music. He picked up bass and guitar, and after delving into artists such as Aphex Twin, Four Tet, and Caribou, started producing tracks on a laptop. He had also studied audio engineering, interned at recording studios, and worked at Captured Tracks as a distribution manager before he released “Mad Disrespect.” The April 2012 release of the like-titled three-track EP coincided with a Mister Saturday Night event featuring an early DJ set from Naples, establishing in one fell swoop the Mister Saturday Night label and Naples’ reputation as a producer and disc jockey.
Within a couple years, Naples had five additional 12” releases to his credit, including a pair for Will Bankhead’s Trilogy Tapes, and one that launched Naples’ own Proibito label. In 2015, a purposefully scruffy batch of tracks Naples sent to Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) for feedback turned into Naples’ debut album, Body Pill, released on Hebden’s Text label. After another crop of EPs and the winding down of Proibito, Naples delivered Take Me with You, a dreamlike sequence of fragmentary — yet flowing — pieces for Good Morning Tapes. A vinyl edition of the 2018 offering became the first LP on Naples’ ANS label in 2019, the same year Naples released Fog FM, a relatively straightforward collection of streamlined ambient and dub techno. Before the end of the decade, Naples and artist/DJ Jenny Slattery had the Incienso label off and running to support admired contemporaries like DJ Python, Beta Librae, Buttechno, and Call Super.
Chameleon, Naples’ second ANS album and fourth full-length overall, was issued in 2021. Decidedly less dance-oriented than Fog FM, it more openly displayed Naples’ lyrical guitar playing and further distinguished itself with layers of sound suggesting a patiently questing band effort, though it was recorded in solitude. The floor-focused Swerve EP appeared on Running Back in 2022 and was followed in 2023 with the leisurely and lively Orbs. ~ Andy Kellman