Shinichi Atobe is a Saitama-based producer who has been making house and techno music since he was 27 years old. His sound has evolved from abstract, dubby minimal techno to brighter, more melodic deep house. Originally appearing in 2001 with a 12-inch EP titled Ship-Scope (2001), which came out on the cult-favorite dub techno label Chain Reaction. Copies subsequently changed hands for triple-digit U.S. dollar amounts. Atobe disappeared for over a decade and during the early 2010s, Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty of Demdike Stare managed to track down the Japanese producer and convinced him to release Atobes first full-length album, Butterfly Effect (2014), on their record label DDS.

Disciplinehomes in on a specific sound, debuted earlier this year on Dub 6(six), the B-side of a limited-edition single for DDS: a midpoint between the dub techno of Atobes earlier releases and the sunnier house sound hes been moving towards since 2018sHeat.The term dub techno typically implies a rainy, vaporous strain of music that often drifts into pure ambient abstraction; Atobes worked in this mode before, most notably on his canonicalShip-ScopeEPfrom 2001, but this is a different interpretation of what those two words can mean in tandem.Disciplineis less interested in creating a sense of space, which is usually the starting point for techno producers appropriating techniques from Jamaican dub, than in using delay to create rhythmic interest.Atobe threads spiderwebs of echo between his pistoning house chords as robust drum patterns pump away, and the only ambient track, SA DUB 5, just sounds like an acid house track with the drums snipped out. SA DUB 8 is embellished by rosy Yamaha DX-7 arpeggios seemingly ripped from an 80s adult-contemporary ballad, while the gorgeous echoing piano thats become something like Atobes signature works overtime on SA DUB 7. SA DUB 5 might not be as woozy or mysterious as some of Atobes earlier beatless tracks, but each individual chord blossoms like a time-lapse of a budding flower as a ticklish TB-303 floats deep in the mix. Little staticky rustles and hisses find their way into the spaces between the drums, and every now and then we hear brief samples of female voices that sound like they were recorded through a phone speaker held up to a mic. These idiosyncratic touches bring variety and a splash of sentimentality to a record that might otherwise come off as a formal experiment.

In the past, Atobes music often proceeded from an alien logic. At its most extreme (2014sButterfly Effect,2016sWorld), his music sounds more like something naturally formed, or washed up on a beach, than made by human hands. Atobes press-shyness and the 13-year gap betweenShip-ScopeandButterfly Effecthave only fueled his mystique, leading to speculation about when (and even by whom) the music on his post-hiatus releases was made.Disciplinestrips away any such mystery, displaying his musics logic up on the board for all to see. Theres nothing here that seems to have made its way into the music by accident, and the record is happy to stake out a small patch of musical territory rather than proceeding from the apparently unlimited thickets of Atobes imagination. But within these narrow parameters is a riot of skill and invention, with just enough of a glimpse into the obsessions of the man behind the music to make it feel like Atobes most personal record yet. via Pitchfork

Label: DDS
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album
Released: 2024
Genre: Electronic
Style: Minimal, Deep House, Dub Techno

File under: House / Electro / Techno