the toy thing's not wholly about the future signifiers not connecting (though that may well play a part), but more about the small scaleness of it, the fiddliness. the geometry of it. it's ergonomy. its textures. music like an xbox controller where you can loop round the joy sticks and press the buttons and pull the triggers and all that. music you interact with with your fingers. those plibby synths are like tapping for example; there's a direct physiological way of relating to that sound in the body.
i think these tracks - or some of them anyway - would have sounded pretty immense on a club sound system, certainly by the standards of that time (a lot of house anthems made in the 80s sound really thin and cheapo compared to today's high-def sound design)
there's a lot of kick in the drum programming - presumably you are listening on ear buds or something with small speakers
but there is definitely a miniaturist aesthetic with a swathe of it e.g. Carl Craig
and restraint - emotional but elegance and control - maybe right there is an affinity with japanese aesthetics
the word 'calligraphy' often springs to mind listening to this stuff
plibby - is that a word musicians use? it's just right.
games analogy - wasn't the Cybotron mythos meant to be a kind of videogame world with the society organised hierarchically - sort of Space Invaders crossed with Metropolis
