Keita Sano seems unsettled. This is true both in the producer's releases—15 singles and now four albums on 14 different labels, in two-plus years, and that's just accounting the physical releases—and his productions, which veer wildly from gnarly disco-based house to noisy, almost experimental techno to downtempo groove. The Okayama, Japan-based artist is probably most closely aligned with labels like Mister Saturday Night and 1080p, North American labels with a DIY spirit and a fondness for off-kilter statements, but even in that light Sano has proven himself a singular presence.
Keita Sano is Sano's fourth album, give or take, and it arrives via Rett I Fletta, a sub-label of Prins Thomas' Full Pupp imprint, because for Sano anything worth doing is worth doing obtusely. Still, Keita Sano feels like the producer's most grounded and focused work yet: seven long tracks aimed at the dance floor, each one a treatise on how varied and dauntless Sano has become. These are tracks that fit into no particular paradigm or scene; they are stuffed with ideas, all of which hope to make you dance. Sano's debts to both house and techno are obvious—Thomas remarked he was drawn to how he “somehow managed to merge the playfulness of disco with the physical impact of techno”—but feel beside the point. Sano isn't a politician crossing the aisle, he's just grabbing whatever works.
Accordingly, the tracks on Keita Sano are as familiar as they are hard to pin down. Squelchy acid licks (“Leave the Floor,” “Full of Love”) rub shoulders with filtered disco (“Honey”) and percussion loops of unknown origin (“Sucker Pt. 2”). “Vood” clangs with hissy industrial energy for more than three minutes before opening up into a calm, looping melody. Sano's tracks are long and evolving but there's very little psychedelia or escapism in his sound; everything is very physical and present, and his peculiar choices prevent you from losing yourself. Only on the closer, “None of Your Business,” when Sano slips into a kind of contented, deep house formalism, does Keita Sano fail to feel fidgety, strange, and emotive.
This is, to a large extent, music for the heads: Sano is a precocious and enigmatic producer but Sano is unlikely to convert agnostics. For anyone inclined, though, Sano is a true talent, an artist for whom “sticking to his guns” is great because his guns are so much different than everyone else’s. Keita Sano is his calmest and most manageable work yet, a fine place to start tracking an artist who seems unlikely to sit still for long.
