Fantastic Plastic Machine - Beautiful (2001)

One-man music machine and cultural trendsetter Tomoyuki Tanaka (a.k.a. Plastic Fantastic Machine) is back in a big sassy way with his third release, Beautiful. Other than an overall mellowing of PFM's occasionally over-amped arrangements, the biggest surprise on Beautiful is the generous use of strings that make the record a bit of an odd duck, more appropriate for the boudoir than the dance floor. In fact, only the endlessly spunky "Take Me to the Disco" is a bona fide dance track here. Otherwise, Beautiful moves through a record collector's dream that includes the super-sophisticated, string-driven groove of "On a Chair," the fluty Latin jazz of "Whistle Song," the lazy, jazzy funk of "Black Dada," and the insanely overarranged spoken-word hoedown "Love Is Psychedelic." But despite all the musical territory covered there's a real cohesion to the whole affair; it's distinctly urban and hip without being pushy about it, with a sly sense of humor riding just under the surface. Occasionally Tanaka's broad palette gets a bit overloaded, with the strings going in one direction and the groove another, but for the most part he manages to pull it all together in a balancing act that both Burt Bacharach and Howie B could be proud of, and that's really saying something. --Carl Hanni

Tracks:
01 I Am Beautiful
02 Beautiful Days
03 Paragon
04 Love Is Psychedelic
05 On A Chair
06 Whistle Song
07 One Minute Of Love
08 Todos Os Desejos
09 I'm Still A Simple Man
10 Black Dada
11 God Save The Mona Lisa
12 Beautiful Days (Reprise)
13 Take Me To The Disco (Malibu Mix)

Links updated 24 October 2007.

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