Handsomeboy Technique - Technique

SWINGING OFF BRANCHES, SPLASHING INTO WAVES

Truthfully, I wasn't expecting much from Handsomeboy Technique's long-awaited return. 12 years have passed since the overlooked Terrestrial Tone Cluster, an album that matched wits with Adelie Land in terms of unbridled effervescence in the wake of The Avalanches' Since I Left You. However, sample-based music is in a different place now. Where it does exist (see: Future Funk and Outsider House), the exuberance still reigns supreme despite relics of the past rarely eclipsing the spotlight of percussion. Obviously, the same could be said for Hip-Hop or Vaporwave when that's always been the case. Plunderphonics records - at least the best of them - told stories through scattered interpretations of speech. Handsomeboy Technique was no different, parading around a myriad of identities in a celebration of life. However, like many of his predecessors, he wanted to prove he can do it on his own. With its sleight self-titling, Technique aims to achieve just that. The samples are no more - save for some scant moments and the lovely interlude 'When You're Gone' - but the joy shines just as bright.

Trepidation was abound, given the lead single's jarring tonal shift. 'Dakishimeta' still brings up the rear of Technique's offerings, with acoustic Pop and bittersweet vocals resulting in a gimmicky flourish, but its ruminative curtsy ends the jovial hoopla with assuaging maturity. The rest shines with Handsomeboy Technique's classic convivial spirit, incorporating Japanese tradition with innervated Dance repetition. It's here, on efforts like 'Answer' and 'A Light Hits The Gloom,' where the lack of sampling becomes apparent. There's a hollowness, gaps between the reiterative one-liners where texture could swell or sparkle. 'Wishing For Your Love' and 'Somewhere Far Away' go even further, unaccompanied by words, feeling like placemats for future insertion. When used tactfully, samples cover the loops and embellish Dance music's encoring nature. Without, it's like capturing soiree revelry from outside the venue. Distant and stifled. A frustrating criticism to employ, for each of the aforementioned songs I genuinely enjoy. They're light and bubbly, sprightly and buoyant, each lifted by pep in their steps.

The songs containing features fair even better, best seen on 'Slowfish' and 'Long Slow Distance.' Each rides that fine line between mesmeric and textured, lending listeners an opportunity to get lost or hyper-analyze the fantastic production quality. There's a gentle push to nearly all of Technique's ten songs, like a summer bike ride to no destination in particular. Pedaling without resistance, exploring countryside as daylight slips on by. Some moments, like the aforementioned songs featuring Ayaka Tatamino and Moto Kawabe respectively, are natural highlights. Memories to be cherished and compiled. Whereas others, like those that wade in the brisk atmosphere, desultory and fulfilled, are perfectly content filling those absentminded gaps of sated pleasure. Like his previous two LP's, Handsomeboy Technique knows how to contribute to life's purest sensations. This time around, proving that samples needn't be a requirement... only an option to better the outcome.