Fantastic Plastic Machine

Who is Fantastic Plastic Machine?

Tomoyuki Tanaka is an electronic music artist/DJ, better known by his stage name of Fantastic Plastic Machine. Tanaka is considered to be part of the Shibuya-kei movement, drawing heavily from bossa nova, lounge music, soft rock, and French pop, but he also incorporates many other types of music. Tanaka was born in Kyoto, Japan.

In the late 1980s, Tanaka played as the bassist in a rock band called Margarine Strikes Back. Then in the early 1990s, Tanaka became a regular club DJ in the Kansai area, working as part of a DJ team known as Sound Impossible. While playing with Sound Impossible, fellow artist and friend Towa Tei convinced Tanaka to go back to recording music, and in 1997 Tanaka created his solo project Fantastic Plastic Machine under the Readymade Records label in Japan. His first two albums, The Fantastic Plastic Machine and Luxury, were critically acclaimed and gained him international recognition. The albums were distributed in the United States under the Emperor Norton label, and in Europe on the Bungalow label. In Japan, he is currently under the Cutting Edge label.

At one point, Tanaka hosted a pop culture show on national radio, and in 2004 he hosted another radio show called "Sound Concierge". He also once served as the editor for the Japanese fashion magazine Brutus.