Shinichi Atobe – "Silent Way"

Shinichi Atobe has never been one for explanation. A 2001 EP on the legendary Chain Reaction, then thirteen years of silence before an unexpected comeback on Demdike Stare’s DDS. And since then a record every two years or so, each one speaking entirely for itself. Silent Way, his eighth album, arrives on his fresh new imprint Plastic & Sounds, opening up on his signature tape hiss as bouncy kicks and vaporous melodies take hold. Japanese microhouse at its purest, deceptively simple, radiant throughout. Then the record shifts register: the almost twelve-minute lead single Rain 1, melancholic yet lit from within, Syndrome clipped and Drexciyan, Fractal reaching somewhere colder and more cosmic, in true Detroit fashion. Each track a small self-contained world. One of his classics, already.

Shinichi Atobe
Silent Way
Plastic & Sounds