Filfla - Frame - Plop - CD

Another Plop CD? So soon after the Fenton 'Pup' album? I wouldn't say Plop was exactly prolific, but when they get on a roll they really do get stuck into their release schedule! Lucky for us though, as this is yet another wonderful album of light, playful and friendly organic Electronica of the highest calibre.

Keiichi Sugimoto is one of those artists who busily works away under a number of aliases and, if you're a fan of this genre, the chances are you will have come across his work as either Minamo (with Yuichiro Iwashita, Namiko Sasamoto and Tetsuro Yasunaga), Fourcolor or Fonica. He clearly spends a great deal of time writing music and the result of this is a tangible mastery of a sound he has made his own.

Filfla follows in the footsteps of his other monikers by using a guitar base for most of the tracks and then electronically tweaking and manipulating the sounds he constructs to form a very pleasing and warm hybrid.

It can be choppy and glitchy at times, which forms an interesting counterpoint to the generally melodic nature of the music, but it never gets too much and remains lively and perky without getting bogged down in overly intricate programming.

The intro track ‘Dx_00’ guides you into the album with a 40 second slice of drifting noise complete with ghostly voices in the background – very much like standing in Kyoto train station and being lulled by the constant announcements and general hubbub of a busy railway environment.

This slips easily into ‘Dx (Distance)’ which sets out the stall for the rest of the musical content of the CD. A subtle high pitched whine works in the recesses of the track to add challenge to the otherwise beautiful nature of the looped chords and melodies which shimmy into the music halfway through. This could easily be a Minamo track in disguise and has the same purity of guitar playing that makes all of Sugimoto’s other work such a joy.

‘”Backyard’ provides the first really rhythmic sounds with yet another uplifting piece of organic-sounding music. It’s the way the plucked strings work with the synthetic sounds, bleeps and melodies that really move it along, and when the shuffly, broken beat arrives it really punctuates the chilled out sounds with a lovely funkiness – not something you can say about a lot of experimental Electronica!

‘Stanza’ is comprised of a deep chord stab with multiple effects and a super stereo feel which wouldn’t be out of place on an Echocord release. It’s then joined by some guitar melodies and a series of Detroit-esque bleeps that could almost be vintage Derrick May before finishing up as pretty much purely a guitar track… a mixture of styles that works like a dream.

‘Epic’ and ‘Nuf’ are the most low-key tracks on the album and use a gorgeous minimal tone to convey their own unique warmth and beauty. ‘Nuf’ in particular has a lullaby quality that’s soothing and soporific.

Upbeat track ‘Coy’ will certainly wake you up from your hypnosis with its quirky and fun feel. Not quite danceable, but certainly one of the most traditional sounding cuts on the album. It has plenty of musical guitar playing and some great Techno-style electronic sounds that are used to give the track a real groove – albeit a subtle one. A lovely tune indeed.

‘Learn’ and ‘Azure’ finish up with more manipulations and reversed guitar notes layered over deliciously warm chord structures to provide a perfect end to a simply marvellous album.

If you’re suffering from the Summer blues (and I know I am because it’s chucking it down with rain outside and it’s August!) this really is a splendid antidote with its light and summery feel.

Props to Keiichi for yet another brilliant album and another reason to admire the sterling work he does for the minimalist electronic scene.

Wonderful.