- Three tracks from Shinichi Atobe's latest album, From The Heart, It's A Start, A Work Of Art, were taken from one of five scratchy acetates cut in 2000. That a worn-out dubplate could be the foundation of a new Atobe full-length is proof of the demand for the producer's music, and perhaps the esteem with which he's held. In recent years, the artist has been written into the dub techno canon as one of the genre's finest producers, thanks to releases like 2014's The Butterfly Effect. More Atobe music has trickled out since then, including another album, World, and a 12-inch. From The Heart, It's A Start, A Work Of Art is another record of stellar quality from the elusive artist.
Atobe's arrangements, changing at just the right moments while barely changing at all, are what makes his techno outstanding. "Regret" shares trademarks—a patient drum pattern, a haunting chord progression, a muted sound palette—with some of Atobe's best work. Once Atobe introduces an extra synth lead and, at one point, a brief piano motif on "Regret," they catch your ear without interrupting the track's patient flow.
The rest of From The Heart, It's A Start, A Work Of Art seems like a scattershot selection of Atobe's work. The tracks from the acetate are more straightforward versions of the subaquatic dub techno of his Chain Reaction 12-inch, Ship-Scope. There are two beatless interludes—"The Test Of Machine 1" and "The Test Of Machine 2"—that home in on Atobe's idiosyncratic sense of texture and melody, with the eerie, yearning quality of his best work present in even these reduced morsels.
Demdike Stare have unearthed a remarkable amount of music from an artist who, until three years ago, had released a solitary 12-inch. From The Heart, It's A Start, A Work Of Art's patchwork sequencing—and the sources of the tracks themselves—suggests that there may not be much more to find. It's the least cohesive of the three Atobe LPs that DDS has released so far, but Atobe's talent is so strong that it hardly matters. In fidelity, mood and style, the album varies a great deal across its 40 minutes, but the quality throughout is astoundingly high.
Tracklist01. Regret
02. First Plate 1
03. First Plate 2
04. The Test Of Machine 2
05. Republic
06. The Test Of Machine 1
07. First Plate 3