Few producers working in electronic music sound quite like Daisuke Tanabe. The Japanese producer came to London to study art and stayed for the music, before eventually returning to his homeland, where he continues to record from his base in Chiba, Japan.
It was in London that his music found a wider audience through the influential CDR nights, where Tony Nwachukwu picked out his track “Sand Hill” for the very first CDR release. It was a pivotal moment that led to releases on several labels and a nomination for the Gilles Peterson All Winners Award in 2006, announcing Tanabe as a producer with a genuinely distinctive voice in London’s electronic music community.
Delicate atmospheres balanced against intricate rhythm, environmental and found sounds woven into compositions that feel organic and quietly hypnotic. Playful without being lightweight, immersive without being earnest — it rewards close listening without demanding it.
Alongside his own productions, Tanabe has built a body of remix work that speaks to the breadth of his range. His credits include Elizabeth Shepherd, Elan Mehler, Little Dragon, Yellowtail, Paradise Found and Aaron Jerome. His remix of Amycanbe’s ‘Your Own Thing’ — released on Dancing Turtle — stands as one of the finest examples of what he brings to another artist’s material: the original reframed rather than replaced, with his signature atmospherics intact.
His EP After Few Layers Before is out now on limited edition double 7-inch vinyl in gatefold sleeves, with original artwork. It is Tanabe at his most focused — deep, unhurried, and entirely his own.
