- Shinichi Atobe's most straightforward album yet still holds many dubby techno wonders.
- Shinichi Atobe's music sounds assembled by the elements, as if his dubplates simply washed up on a beach every now and then to be found by his label DDS. His productions follow an alien logic, hammering away at oddly phrased melodies over sometimes extended, or sometimes extremely brief, runtimes. His mixes are so trebly they can feel like they're playing out of a greeting card. His debut EP Ship-Scope and his first full-length Butterfly Effect sounded like they'd been soaked in an acid bath for days, and even as he pivoted to a brighter house sound on 2018's Heat and 2020's Yes, his tracks were still weather-worn and faintly ominous.
His sixth album, Love Of Plastic, fills in some of that empty space. The sound is generally in line with that of his last two LPs, but these nine tracks are tougher, less atmospheric, more structured. A Shinichi Atobe tune called "Intro" is usually an obstinate loop you wade through for four or five minutes, a ritual to prove your commitment to the record. Here, "Intro" is only a minute-and-a-half, and it builds suspense with a kick drum marching out of the murk, getting us actually excited for what might be to come.
The follow-up, "Love Of Plastic 1," is the most approachable track he's ever made, not just because it bounces around a bright major key but because it actually takes us to a few different places during its robust seven minutes. Atobe productions tend to loop aimlessly into the horizon, but "Love Of Plastic 1" is cordoned off into a few identifiable sections: first chords that piston brightly like classic Luomo, then a few bars involving an off-key synth lead and finally that incredible echoing piano that bounced like a ghost through 2020's Yes. The entrance of the piano is a flex, the artist signing his work with a grand flourish.
Atobe's sense of mischief is still intact. Rattling dub effects thread a web of texture between the beats of "Love Of Plastic 1" and "Beyond the Pale." The low horn under "Severina" sounds like it's been torn from a Gas track, and "Love Of Plastic 8" is six minutes of amoebic sequencer squiggling held in line by a kick and a pinprick hi-hat. And some of the best tracks are just plain good. "Ocean 2" would stand astride most Atobe albums but here is buried deep in the back half, one anthem among many. "Love Of Plastic 5" is nearly ten minutes of swooning, amniotic house, undergirded by a little fleck of bass and a deep, mysterious chord that marks the first time the waters in his music have ever sounded warm.
Love Of Plastic is the easiest Atobe album to play for people and the one whose tracks will probably show up in the most DJ sets, but it's also sort of a litmus test. Do you like Atobe for his weirdness or for his raw talent? If the former, Love Of Plastic might seem safer and harder to get lost in than albums like Butterfly Effect, World or even Heat, which make you work for their pleasures rather than yielding them so easily. Otherwise, here's more proof that Atobe is capable of just about anything—and that his music isn't thrown together by the winds and tides, but delicately crafted with the deft hand of a master.
Tracklist01. Intro
02. Love Of Plastic 1
03. Love Of Plastic 5
04. Love Of Plastic 8
05. Beyond The Pale
06. Loop 6
07. Love Of Plastic 6
08. Ocean 2
09. Severina