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*** James Andersen

JOHN BLAIR PARTY VOL. 4 FEATURING DJ JAMES ANDERSEN

(Logic)

Andersen, a New York–based house-music DJ who impressed on his 1998 Logic debut thanks to an aggressive, power-pulse mix technique, applies much of the same this time around to a darker and much wackier selection of 12-inch singles. The insanity — the danger and even the absurdity — quotient of a DJ’s selected music is what distinguishes house music’s wizards from the merely skillful. Indeed, as Andersen shows, the riskier (and darker) the music, the more his mix techniques can transform it into something else. Here, as he pulsates, pounds, and bursts from Shunji Moriwari’s blissful “Action” to Dlayna’s hard and acid “Special” to Luke Slater’s tribal “All Exhale” and Superjuicy’s darkly romantic “Give It to Me,” the craziness of the music validates the (sexual) explosion of his mixes.

Andersen also reaches back into the disco subconscious, quoting the “ak-shawn!” cry from Alicia Bridges’s “I Love the Nightlife” and fitting a dub version of Gloria Gaynor’s “Just Keep Thinking About You” into his set. By the time KHZ’s “Bobby” arrives, with its tortured vocal, enigmatic portraiture (“Be a good girl, Bobby, you have to be alive!”), maximally sensual deep beats, fierce reverbs, and orchestral orgasmic fury, dancers are ready to be taken, ready to make love to Bobby the “good girl,” to idolize her, even to be her. Be careful how you use this set — Andersen’s house music basks in danger.

— Michael Freedberg