Bleep

While probably best known for his work in Drexciya, Japanese Telecom was one of many aliases utilised by Detroit’s Gerald Donald at the turn of the millennium. Released in 2001, Virtual Geisha is the first full length from the Japanese Telecom project, and it sees Donald continuing to draw a throughline between the hard-edged midwest electro that made him a star and the more botanic sounds heard east. Along with some nods to Japanese legends Yellow Magic Orchestra, there are glimpses of new sounds and ideas that Donald would bring to future Dopplereffekt projects. Best of all are tracks like ‘Virtual Geisha She Interacts’ that split the difference between those exploratory synths and more traditional Detroit machine funk.