Earlier this month, the New York Times‘ ArtsBeat blog ran an assessment of the latest Joy Orbison EP in graph form, in which Andrew Kuo mapped his knee-jerk reactions to each of the record’s three tracks, vacillating between breathless Aphex Twin comparisons and “Fatboy Slim Junior” skepticism. Cute, if a little pat, it speaks to the “buzz about the buzz” situation that Joy’s been saddled with, his music discussed more by a watchful but largely disinterested blogosphere than by his ardent fans. A contributor to that record, Actress (Darren Cunninham) is similarly blessed with high expectations, yet he’s bypassed most of the factional fanaticism of electronic dance music and hardly registered with whatever it is that now occupies the district once known as indie rock. Perhaps it’s that his compression-faded, gray-scale sound is too modest in scale, or simply too murky. There are no sinus-clearing swells in Actress’ music; the sensation is closer to the sound of blood rushing through your ears. The man’s no recondite wall flower, though. His debut album, Hazyville, found its way onto quite a few best-of-decade lists, and his tracks have been licensed by Trus’me’s house-centric Prime Numbers, as well as for two Fabric mixes. His latest transmissions have made it easier and easier for me to see what it is that so many find special. His records have a naggingly familiar sound but, at the same time, have trademarked a sound that’s unmistakably “Actress.”