Fantastic Plastic Machine

beautiful (Emperor Norton Records)

In his third full-length album beautiful, Japan’s Tomoyuki Tanaka creates a sound most easily described as souped-up Muzak with a bass line. The international DJ blends such eclectic styles as disco, soul, bossa nova and house dance into his synthetic music which induces finger or foot-tapping and head-bobbing without causing any abuse to the ear. Tomoyuki shows jazz influences in his tracks “God Save the Mona Lisa” and “I’m Still a Simple Man,” on which he received help from respective legendary vocalists Bo Dorough (of School House Rock fame) and Hirth Martinez.  

Despite the diversity of the album’s influences, there is not a great deal of variety within or among his songs. Most tracks find a particular musical phrase to repeat for extended periods of time. Even the most pleasant of melodies becomes grating when played at such length without change. Salvation from the repetition usually arrives in the form of a pseudo-bridge of 70s-esque strings, but often this gesture is too little too late. Tracks such as “Beautiful Days” and “Love is Psychadelic” attempt to hide their redundancy under a mix of deep-voiced speech and song reminiscent of Barry White.

The lyricism of pyschadelic love, “Was it an illusion or was it real / Oh by the way I might have drank too much” are not profound enough to distract from the background music, which has effects both positive and negative. Vocalizations reflective of Beach Boys harmonies are included in “On a Chair,” while “I’m Still a Simple Man” and “Black Dada” feature more mellow sound. True diversity on the album comes with the flute-driven cover of Frankie Kauckles’ “Whistle Song,” and “One Minute of Love,” in which the piano’s rising and falling of speed and pitch resembles the sound of a music box winding down.

  The three-second long Track 1 contains no music but only the exclamation, “I am beautiful!” Unfortunately, the beauty of Fantastic Plastic Machine’s latest album is only skin deep. Its easy listening quality is too gentle for the modern club scene and too upbeat for the elevator. It serves as good background music, because in the long run, it is fluffy and forgettable.   —Andrew D. Goulet