Imagine a people mover, on which you stand. This massive conveyer belt moves you and others along at a leisurely pace, slowly enough that you can take in your surroundings, but just fast enough to evoke a mid-tempo grooviness, to make you feel as if you are on a ride. Which you are. As you glide, dioramas pass by you, showcasing the different ways that music has been made and enjoyed. One displays a group of moody Londoners dressed in black, guardedly bobbing their stoned heads to a jungle beat. In another, King Tubby sits in the studio, adjusting echo and reverb with an intense but deeply satisfying focus. As the ride nears its end, frenetic neon lighting twitches and jerks over a massive crowd that responds with sweaty ecstatic fervor to the weavings of a hyper-acidic 303 line.

I ask you to imagine this, not only because it is a fun idea, but because it is the most accurate way that I can describe the 70-minute homage-heavy yet wholly original journey that is Keita Sano’s tape Holding New Cards, released this month on Vancouver’s 1080p. If it sounds a bit silly, well, welcome to 1080p: a label that mixes frivolity and function in a way that can catch the “serious listener” a bit off guard. But there is nothing silly about Sano’s musicality. With astonishing craft, Sano collects and arranges his sweeping range of influences to create not a pastiche, but a linear tapestry of both tribute and innovation. The tape nods towards the past while at the same time galloping into the frontier. On “Onion Slice,” a chopped-beyond-chopped breakbeat and the classic, never-tiring “Yeah! Woo” sample finds itself in a thriving marriage with Sano’s crushing synth lines and anthemic vocal shouts. On “Holding New Cards,” what first appears to be a muddled, drone-heavy wash of sound gradually reveals itself to be a track that would be right at home in any beat-driven warehouse party. But then there are the tracks that are near-impossible to label, like the opener “Fake Blood,” which playfully engages the stuttering of synths to manifest a vibe that can only be called the Keita Sano Groove, as it has no precedent (at least as far as I have heard). It is quite cheeky, actually, the way Sano messes with the music listener’s pride in pinning things down, one moment indulging them with obvious references, the next, leaving them at a loss for words in their efforts to describe what he is doing.

And yet, there is not one song on Holding New Cards that does not make me salivate when I imagine the exact moment in a DJ set that it would be dropped. The songs may not always be describable, but they are extremely placable. It’s not that you can’t imagine the kinds of songs that Sano is making on Holding New Cards. It’s simply that you realize, after hearing them, that your imagination may be in dire need of a workout.

Holding New Cards is out now via 1080p.