Fantastic Plastic Machine | Profile Fantastic Plastic Machine is the vehicle of Kyoto-born DJ and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka. Tanaka started his career as a bassist in the short-lived retro pop band Margerine Strikes Back, but only started to gain serious industry traction as a house DJ in Osaka and Kyoto with his DJ team Sound Impossible. In the late 90s, Tanaka returned to recording, the result being Fantastic Plastic Machine. FPM contributed to several compilations, dropping its eponymous debut to high expectations in 1997 on Pizzicato Five's Readymade Records imprint. A Pizzicato Five protege of sorts, FPM soon became synonymous with the Shibuya-kei style of music, and like other artists at its center, Tanaka employed a hodgepodge of styles including French pop, bossa nova, acid jazz, drum'n'bass, soundtrack music, and exotica. He continued in this stylistic vein for several more releases before the end of the century, touring Europe and Canada on the strength of overseas releases on the Emperor Norton (US) and Bungalow (Germany) labels. In 2001, FPM released Beautiful, a highly polished dance record informed by '70s disco and funk that saw Tanaka moving further away from his customary style blender toward a more consistent, club-oriented sound. Since that time, he has continued to release prolifically. In addition to recording as Fantastic Plastic Machine, Tanaka has done remixes for artists including Towa Tei, Pizzicato Five, and Yoshinori Sunahara in Japan, with overseas collaborators including Bjork, Dmitri from Paris, and Combustible Edison. by Bill Haw
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