Eeeeeesh, Shinichi Atobe’s sixth album for DDS, another deployment of effortless and entirely inimitable club classics that connect the dots between effervescent dub house, deep techno and swirling beatdown, selected and compiled from a package of new productions sent in the post with nothing but cryptic track titles for guidance.

Love of Plastic - we talking aesthetic here pal? bit like comme de garçons’ genius, subversive amplification of synthetics in perfume? Something like Mark Fell’s assertion that “House music is best when it does not aim to copy ‘real’ music”? Impossible to tell - and honestly part of the thrill is in not really fully grasping Atobe’s praxis. What we can say is that with every album there’s a shift - sometimes barely perceptible - in spirit and focus. On this one everything’s gone a bit heavier - bit deeper - once again refracted through Rashad Becker’s mastering prism. You really could be listening to music recorded decades, years or a few weeks ago - we’ll probably never know. But with the simplicity comes a kind of impenetrable code too. That fleeting diva vocal sample 4 minutes into ‘Love of plastic 6’ - what’s it doing there? why does it work so well?

Perhaps the reason Shinichi’s music resonates with so many is the impregnable sense of optimism buried in his DNA - there’s a breeze of warm air that wafts over whenever his music is played, a promise of better days, blue skies, tingling skin, sultry evenings - all that hammy stuff - but also entirely undeniable. Play this one and tell us you don’t feel it?

Spring’s almost in the air.


Mastered by Rashad Becker
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Photographyt by Mat Thornton
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Limited edition vinyl and download More

Shinichi Atobe’s fifth album for DDS, his first in two years. Deep and sublime, the classic Chain
Reaction < > Chicago House vibe, but this time with a swarming Drexciyan undercurrent,
somewhere between DJ Sprinkles, Dopplereffekt and The Other People Place, still 100% Shinichi.
It’s odd working with an artist without ongoing dialogue; no context or an exchange of ideas. It’s
all conjecture. Here’s another CD of material in the post from Shinichi, two years more or less since
the last one. No words except for the track titles. Oh, a photo this time.
‘Yes’, positivity, hope. But the album starts with a dystopian vision; something like Dopplereffekt’s
sound-chemistry experiments, a tense builder. Big optimistic chasms open up, the Piano House
euphoria of the title track, beautiful sunset closer ‘Ocean 1’. But there’s a noticeable change too.
‘Lake 2’ is more fraught sci-fi, ‘Lake 3’ a sort of percussive Chain Reaction monster, ‘Loop 1’ on a
Drexciyan tip.
It’s all coated in that weird - some people say infuriating - toppy production, witnessed this time
in a more tempered and different formation courtesy of an amazing Rashad Becker master, all
precise but loosely swung arrangements. Everything slow to unfurl but, also, everything in exactly
the right place More