PRESS ARCHIVE
“it never sounds as if 'oddity' is the quality being pursued. Yokota fragments himself in brief snapshot gestures that scramble your listening vantage in one graceful dip, then move on.”
Ian Penman
Ian Penman
“Japan’s Susumu Yokota is a renaissance man on a global scale. DJ, photographer, metalworker, artist, lyricist and prodigious producer, Yokota’s artistry is one of wise sensibility.”
Justi Echeles
“Rejecting cheap ambience in favour of a rich reverie, Yokota's
dreamscapes will melt the staunchest cynic, his crystalline melodies, sonic smudges and beguiling blurs breathtaking vindications of the
border-crossing process.”
Kevin Martin
MAGIC THREAD
“Upbeat rigid, introspective and eloquent by turns, it conjures up a cloud-like playfulness courtesy of a distinctive Japanese like rhythm which pushes and pulls the senses in opposite directions.”
Jonas Stone
Jonas Stone
“Somewhere in the process of evolution the spinning and weaving of thread became possible for humankind,”
writes Susumu Yokota on this first European release of his 1998 CD Magic Thread. “How did this come to pass?”
And the answer is...not much help really in getting a handle on the extraordinary yet evasive weft of his Fluxus electronica.
Since he evacuated Acid Jazz, Ambient and all other safehouses along the Tokyo-London-Detroit-Chicago axis, his music has gone into freefall and ended up in a womb nine months before the disco.
He is now producing nascent forms whose future shapes contained in single-toned cells floating dreamily in amniotic fluid, even as they unknowingly gravitate towards each other in rhythmic strings of life.
The most compelling pieces here pick up on and amplify those strings’ muffled pulses “Reflux” is a simple yet tremendous heaving rhythm rising from a swoon of electronic near silence. Four tracks later, on “Potential”, that same lifeforce has evolved into a more complex creature trailing limbs that inquisitively reach out and punch keys or pluck at guitars. On “Stitch”, the music buzzes with the static and interference, an ecstasy of communication. Still nine months before the disco, disillusion has not yet kicked in.
Biba KopfMarch 2000
Tokyo's Susumu Yokota delivers yet more wistful, harmonic landscaping which although it predates last year's 'Sakura’, feels a good deal more contemporary.
Upbeat rigid, introspective and eloquent by turns, it conjures up a cloud-like playfulness courtesy of a distinctive Japanese like rhythm which pushes and pulls the senses in opposite directions.
Nothing is wasted nor without purpose as the versatile Yokota fashions a drifting electronic effort which, to borrow from Paul Daniels, really is magic.
****
Jonas Stone
March 2000
March 2000
“Somewhere in the process of evolution the spinning and weaving of thread became possible for humankind. How did this come to pass? It can only be that the thread is possessed of magical properties.”
Susumu Yokota expresses with his use of electronics and circuitry, particularly in this analogy of wires as conventional threads, a paradoxical form of ancient modernism. Blips weave through the atmosphere, rhythms pulse and by, and forgotten percussive notes sound like woodblocks, creating illusions of organic machinery. Then at other times, such as the track metabolic’, the breath is forced out as the motor kicks back into life, forming a dense mesh of stifling factory noise: the eternal struggle of nature (the old) versus technology (the new).
Are more mechanised musics replacing the human touch or has Yokota succeeded in marrying the two? We can no longer be complacent about the music of sound.
The cycle time regulating the ups and downs of music is getting shorter and some of the peaks and valleys are getting higher and lower. You have to be on your toes a lot more than in the past, you have to be able not to panic or overact. Sureness and steadiness worked for my dad’s generation.
But now it's reaction time.
Matthew Ivany
2000
“The album is a dark, moody collage of industrial urban atmospheres. Strange, lilted rhythms are carefully woven together from mechanical sounds, metallic clicks and scrapes and the occasional breakbeat sample. Other tracks use the static crackle and buzz of electricity, making the record sound as if it is plugged directly into the national grid. Here we have Yokota as alchemist – using this dark and mysterious collection of sound as his base material, he creates something that is strange, intense, and very beautiful.”
Jonathan Hughes
2000
“You could call it 'electronica', but it's more warp and weft than Warp
Records. For his second Leaf album (following last year's "Image”), Japan's
Susumu Yokota takes the familiar hack metaphor of samples being woven
together and makes an instrumental concept album out of it, inspired by the
arts of spinning and weaving. This engrossing faintly creepy music suggests Yokota is more interested in metaphysics than industrial history, however. It's elusive stuff that - like materials created from ‘Magic Thread' he's so entranced by - is mysteriously much greater than the sum of its parts. The 11 tracks are heady with portent-laden atmospherics
that aren't easily broken up into their constituents, so that describing them is
like trying to catch handfuls of air. In other words- as you consider calling ‘Circular' a soundtrack for underwater autobahns. or identify the key element
of 'Spool' as a collection of malignant clocks - it just makes you look stupid. A more prosaic angle on ‘Magic Thread' places Yokota between the processed glitches typical of A-Musik and Mego releases and the pulsating techno of Richie Hawtin. But, again,
there's that curious ambience, all creak and hiss~ a hint of something arcane. The feeling that Yokota, enchanted by witchy dreams and properly ethereal sounds, exists on a different spiritual plane to most of his contemporaries. Which makes 'Magic Thread'. with a certain woolly inevitability, much more
than any old rope.”
John Mulvey
March 2000
John Mulvey
March 2000
Japanese producer Susumu Yokota has had a long and multifaceted career, spanning almost two decades and a variety of musical styles. Yet for those (like me), who were only familiar with Susumu Yokota's work as a house producer on releases such as 1999, this disk is quite a revelation. Much of the music on Magic Thread falls under the heading ‘ambient,’ although it's a peculiar unsettling, freaky type of ambient music― it's beautiful, but not exactly relaxing.
Some tracks, especially the more spare ones, such as the gorgeous opener ‘Weave’ and ‘Spool,’ seem indebted to traditional Japanese music (or maybe it just sounds that way to these Western ears). At other points, such as on ‘Circular’ or ‘Potential,’ when Yokota uses subtle housebeats to propel his oh-so restrained music forward, the music would be quite at home on a label such as Swim. An enthralling and beautiful record.
S. Bolle
2(18)
3 May 2000
Wistful yet alien electronica from Japan.
"Somewhere in the process of evolution," states Susumu Yokota on the sleeve of his latest archival release, "the spinning and weaving of thread became possible for humankind. How did this come to pass? It can only be that the thread is possessed of magical qualities." Yokota's words don't reveal much about the content of his songs, but the composer presumably perceives each filament of twine as a metaphor for the sound sources (stuck compact discs? maltreated electronic equipment?) that he knits together so adroitly. Track titles extend the theme: “Weave,” “Unravel,” “Spool,” etc. the composer is a refugee from Japan's acid-jazz, house and techno scenes and while (in print) he seems to have rejected the dancefloor's functional imperative, he still hasn't totally jettisoned the experimental-techno impulse and still aptly deploys repetitive beats and motifs: "Metabolic!' is the most (literally) bangin' track, industrial in the sense that's its clattering metallic core sounds like a paean to the manufacturing industry; "Stitch" buzzes with the kind of errant static and interference more normally associated with the Mego label et al. But, for the most part, Yokota disrupts
the senses with wistful alien electronica that is, by turns, strident and introverted.
David Hemingway
August 2000
Tokyo Prolific producer of Jazzy House and Textured Ambience, Susumu Yokota stands somewhere between a grapevine and a sexy planet. Justi Echeles travels through the language barrier to talk to the cool cat behind the chilled tones.
Japan’s Susumu Yokota is a renaissance man on a global scale. DJ, photographer, metalworker, artist, lyricist and prodigious producer, Yokota’s artistry is one of wise sensibility. Even if you don’t recognize his name, changes are you could listen through his dense discography and have a few epiphanal moments of ‘oh yeah, I know that one…’ Since his 1992 Frankfurt – Tokyo Connection release on Harthouse, Yokota’s ambient, house, techno and jazzy variants thereof have been putting some of the bliss into blissed-out dancefloors everywhere. His new album, Zero, is a chilled masterwork that shines a light to where, according to Yokota’s lyrics, “Everything reflects in your eyes/Starts to sound in your ears.”
The Japan office of Sublime, the label that releases much of Yokota’s work, is located in the youthful and bustling Shibuya district in Tokyo.
From this clean, modern space the deceptively plain and boyish-looking Yokota directs attention to the streets outside as one of his main sources of inspiration. From his music and visual imagery, Yokota looks to be inspired by nature and space, but its “everything,” he says, “not just art, but the people in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo…”
To Yokota, the words ‘one world,’ sum up each album he produces, intimating his desire to create a whole world through his music. A few moments looking at some of Yokota’s art featured on his CD covers reveals such calmed imagery as a simple grapevine or wine rack made of steel, both photographed in a slightly out-of-alignment blur that trademarks his visual work. Like Yokota’s music, it is the essence of the thing that affects you directly. With the connections between his art and music, it’s a wonder that he doesn't combine the dance and art environments. Yokota offers that while it’s easy to make the music and to DJ, the organising of art/music events is a different matter, though the possibility remains. If ever there was a producer whose music mirrors the moniker of the label for which he records, it’s Yokota.
Elevated and astonishing, his relationship with Sublime makes sense and he appreciates the label’s open approach to his creative process. Yet Yokota maintains his own label, Skintone, to enable the release of more personal projects. Skintone allows him to do everything he wants to do with little care about sales and business considerations. Ambient, experimental, techno, traditional Japanese, house, classical, jazz-categories don’t matter; simply making the music that he wants is what counts.
It's Friday night and Yokota has an early slot at Tokyo Drome, a mostly trance event held at one of Tokyo’s more uncouth venues, Liquid Room, where the door staff are not the friendliest, the sound isn’t great and the evening is geared towards the trance masses. With a slow, atmospheric start, Yokota draws in the trickling with a snake-like flow of ambient house and harder beats.
He succeeds in getting the floor moving even though his winding river of a set is better suited to a more intimate venues where the current of sounds would be more emotionally navigable.
As an introduction of sorts to Magic Thread (released on Leaf/Skintone), Yokota touches on the ethereal quality of all of his work. “Somewhere in the process of evolution the spinning and weaving of thread became possible for humankind. How did this come to pass? It can only be that the thread is possessed of magical properties.”
The thread of Yokota’s music is that of a collective humanity that is now emerging from a bleaker world into a more intelligent and tender sensibility. Fuck Prozac take six Susumu Yokota CDs and see you in a week. Like the post-e feeling of vulnerability and hopefulness, Yokota’s music has the effect of an enchanted medicine: complicated and serene, informed and simple, layered yet clean. What he does is not necessarily the Japanese way, or the dancefloor way, but simply, “the Yokota way”.
Many thanks to Emi Mari at Sublime for translating,
Justi Echeles
No. 43
13 July 2000
Susumu Yokota's alternative stars continue on the ascendance, after last year's release of the sublime 'Images', with the first release outside of Japan for 'Magic Thread', originally the first LP on Yokota's own Skintone label. 'Magic Thread' reinforces Yokota as a giant of talent, regardless of which style he chooses to pursue, and although this is more electronic than the acoustic sounds of 'Images', it harnesses the same ability in spatial atmospherics and delicate styling, that somehow capture moods, fleeting ideas, random thoughts, moments of insight, and translates them into an audio spell.
Steve Nickolls
April 2000
The Japanese maestro just can't help coming up with delicate sounds of rare invention. Not content with last year’s soundtrack for underground airports, he returns with songs about, em, the thread of life. Or something. You’ll be confused as to why, but will find yourself drawn time and time again.
March 2000
It has become difficult to ignore the accomplishments and sound ventures concocted by Leaf label producer Susumu Yokota. His latest gift Magic Thread lends deeply into the surreal and the gentile abstract. With his reach grasping much further than his native Pacific Rim habitat. Susumu Yokota transcends musical boundaries, bypassing normal production routes by zigzagging among ambient excursions while simultaneously flirting mildly with break beats and pulse-rhythms. A much-anticipated offering to say the least Magic Thread shows just how innovative one man can be and just how many different paths one person can take.
Brad Anderson
2(22)
June 2000
Takashi ShinjoAugust 2000
With dazzling electronic mutations and energetic beatsystems, Susumu Yokota reflects upon that underappreciated fiber of ongoing historical importance ... thread.
Indeed, in Yokota's able hands soundwaves are spun into 11 ear-pleasing tapestries as surely as if they were woven from magic thread.
Entrancing weave pulls us into a beatless murk of watery surroundsound where a host of unknown sources ripple enticingly.
Echoey guitar sounds repeat throughout hazy reflux, backed by lightly tapping beats and cymbals. Quiet grit cycles through unravel as fluid distortions seep out into a spreading pool of percussion-free resonance.
Beginning with a thrumming groove and persistent drumbeats, layer upon layer is added to the hypnotic circular; almost microscopic textures bleep out at a leisurely danceable pace as gauzey, brass-like swells radiate. spool (6:47) seems to unroll hesitantly, sweltering in a moody hush as faintly clattering soundcycles appear on several levels and synthtones hover and echo.
potential reaches a juxtaposition of airy electronics topped by driving (though somehow non-aggressive) percussion.
Sporadic outbursts of slightly grungy tones wash over the muted e-ripples of fiber (2:08). Buzzing binaurally with scritchy warbles, metabolic picks up a throbbing beat, and then again another slightly offset pounding rhythm. Layers of bubbly static coat stitch's resonant humming frequencies.
A tribal-ish vibe which emanates from the drummy foreground of dispassionate-yet-warm blend overpowers the washy backdrop of fragile belltones.
Digital microtextures underscore the wavering energies which twist obliquely through melt, cutting off this collection on a softly experimental strand ...
The silky fabrics of Susumu Yokota's creations shimmer in subtle sweeps and colors, never overt, except in the thoughtfully applied rhythm sections. Magic Thread pulls together a most impressive convergence of experimental electro-ambient and (often) restrained beatronics. Tie yourself up with these very cool 9.0 sounds which can be found at Dutch-East India.
David J Opdyke
29 May 2000
DREAM WEAVER
Music from memory is often a difficult concept to control. Steve Nicholls ventured into the intricate musical world of Susumu Yakota and left with a feeling of enlightenment.
Have you ever had a dream so vivid, so lifelike, that you were sure it was real, until you woke up? Unsettling isn't it? Vaguely unnerving, but at the same time intriguing, like you might have just had a glimpse of another dimension, one that we still don't properly know how to access. Susumu Yokota has been there, on several occasions, and he has made some records about what it was like.
"I make an album as if it were a movie," he explains, "after the introduction, the story unfolds scene by scene. Each song is a different scene. In the case of both 'Images' and 'Magic Thread' I recalled memories, then imagined the sounds of those memories. As the memories are quite abstract and obscure now, it felt more imaginative to complete the music without necessarily concluding it, i.e. manufacturing a finished product."
Yokota refers to the brace of albums that were released in the last month or so; 'Images 1983-1998', and 'Magic Thread', the very first releases from his own Skintone label.
Previously only available in Japan, the UK's Leaf Label made a wise move in snapping them both up for a European release; something for which we should be extremely grateful.
Better known for his techno and house excursions, particularly on the Harthouse label, and slightly less familiar work as 246, Ringo, Prism, and Stevia, 'Magic Thread', and 'Images' sees Susumu opening up his soul.
As Susumu explains some parts of his method, although method implies a plan, which belies the wonderfully random and almost accidental nature of his melodies, I am reminded of the Aphex Twin's theory of lucid dreaming, where he claimed he wrote music in his sleep. This is a quality that Susumu's work shares. That, and the ability to master any style that he chooses to work in. His techno and house music, whilst obviously made with the intention of making people groove, always had a little extra, depth, melody, and worked on several different layers. The house music that Susumu makes is so far removed from what passes for that today, it probably shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath. While 'Magic Thread' contains elements of this, with its more electronic, structured rhythms, it is 'Images' where Susumu's imagination soars.
Acoustic fragments waft in and out of your listening window. Fragile piano melodies and almost hesitant, organ sounds gather in the corners of your consciousness.
And, just when you thought you might have grasped the thread of evolution, comes 'Nisemono No Uta', a kind of folky blues cover of Gloria Gaynor's hi-energy anthem 'I Am What I Am'.
Yes, this is where my heart lies musically, naturally, of course. Image especially. I had five original songs made in 1983 then I produced five new tracks much later from the original images. The album is the most personal I have ever made. I am making music that I want to listen to."
Communicating with Susumu - via e-mail and an interpreter- has the strange effect of making his answers to my questions mirror the nature of his music; his responses at times gaining an oddly elusive nature, like the fleeting snatches of pictures, thoughts, and ideas, that 'Images' is.
I write to Susumu, telling him that listening to these records makes me feel as though I am looking through a stranger's photo album, realising that the pictures have only half the meaning to me, as opposed to all for the owner.
"I'm glad to hear you felt that. 'Image' is an album of my memories. However, it is not all pure nostalgia, some of it is fictitious. 'Image' is a wondrous mixture of deja-vu from my childhood, and jamais-vu of my future. In 'Magic Thread' I imagined the evolution of mankind as thread, formed from hemp plant, which then weaves itself into an intricate net." •
The vocal sounds like a warbling karaoke version. It's funny, but kind of sad at the same time. This, as much as anything on the album, highlights the off kilter oddness of the collection of tracks. Their only link could possibly be the way that the melodies came to Susumu. It is a record of ultimate free thinking. The thoughts and ideas have been descending on, rather than conjured by, their composer.
I finish by asking Susumu what inspires him to keep exploring different moods and styles, to keep pushing the envelope of his creativity.
"People tend to choose music depending on time, place, or occasion, i.e. their mood. For me, it feels very normal to listen to house, ambient and classical music. When I produce, I imagine the music I want to make at that time. Then, if I can realise it in my studio with the equipment I have, I do it. A film director's theme will change constantly throughout his/her life. Picasso was always changing. I had no formal musical education. I cannot read a musical score and can hardly play the piano but I am enjoying observing how I evolve musically through my life. It feels very natural to me. Inspiration always comes from my life, and my work. Friends, DJing and all forms of media. I do, however, avoid unnecessary media information. I just input the essentials."
Steve Nicholls
April 2000
IMAGE 1983-1998
“This is the
sort of music you put on while you're
doing the washing up only to find it has taken possession of your very soul.”
doing the washing up only to find it has taken possession of your very soul.”
Ben Thompson
Susumu Yokota is a new name to me – and Image is an unexpected gem; but for anyone who knows his work, I'm betting it will represent a double surprise. Previously known for his Techno forays, Yokota is revealed here as a studio alchemist of a very different stripe, warming nuggets of strange provenance, sifting unlikely ores, exhibiting deposits from unfamiliar maps.
It's like one man's musical subconscious, a scrapbook surprise: tentative miniatures, micro delights from 1 5 years of hearing things in the ether. ( 1 3 pieces in 34 minutes: some of the titles seem longer than the tracks they invoke) Brittle leaves, polished stones, unearthed molars, ghost laughter on an autumn afternoon: sonic images.
At times, it finds that same aching/erotic vein Burroughs hits when he table-taps childhood memories.
Field recordings from some half-imaginal land:
as if someone had extracted the Americana pump organ 'essence' of Tom Waits or The Band, and erased all the pomp, lyrical props, forward pulsion, drums and 'universalising' narratives... leaving a wraith work, an impure mood of broken mirrors, mono images, half recalled MOR choruses, circus refrains. On "Daremoshiranai Chisanakuni", with basically just a guitar and atmospherics, Yokota sends out more shivers than Waits can manage on a whole LP these days.
Ditto some of electronica's over-hyped grandmasters. If Techno is Yokota's public work, these are hallucinations from his private air.
Far from bearing the marks of current fashion, it made me think of an entirely other time – that other 7Os, not progressive, not punk, a strange 'here be miniatures' map, an imaginary country: "Morino Gakudan' is an object lesson in understatement (strings by 1919 Cale, synths by 1978 Cluster?) and is an Underground hit in waiting (I even heard it on the telly last night);
likewise, "Nisemono No Uta" is an unlikely - but somehow logical -twist of guitar, giggles and jazzy vibraphone glissandi.
If there's a comparison it's inevitably shortform Eno - when his music still had a sense of humour and absurdity - as well as some of the residents of his Obscure principality. With one caveat: it never sounds as if 'oddity' is the quality being pursued. Yokota fragments himself in brief snapshot gestures that scramble your listening vantage in one graceful dip, then move on.
“Amai Niyoi" hypnotises with simply strummed guitar and toy keyboard, where loops sound like strums and strums sound like loops "Tayutafu' has the delicacy of John Fahey's or Nick Drake's lonesome afternoon eddies.
Elsewhere, slideshow moments of freakish sonic collage evoke alternately tender, dirty, wistful, secret and scarifying moods. These are blurry sonic haiku - as if what Cage heard through the Zen grapevine had taken a circuitous route back East, with a keen joker's twist.
A joker's economy, too.
I find this take on things - where only a single tone or ghost voice seems to fill the air more than massed banks of whatever - captivating. It's sexy and funny - Little Feat to Pomp Ambient's Chicago. The hilarious/disturbing "Yumekui Kobito" is something like the 'I Am The Fly' in the ointment of Ambient's post-Namlook Epic Swathes obsession And maybe that is the true motor behind Yokota's release of this stuff. Maybe in Techno/Ambient land he's seen things tipping over into Concept/overdub madness, and this is his reaction.
Whatever. Image's micro mood engineering is pure phantasmal pop, a compelling tour of musical dustworlds. It makes you itch to hear whatever ivory dice Yokota rolls out next.
Ian Penman
November 1999
The best album of experimental Japanese instrumental meanderings ever? The first five tracks on this hugely addictive record - deceptively simple guitar and organ sketches in the manner of Jim O'Rourke at his most pastoral - were recorded in 1983-4. The other eight were done 15 years later. In between times Mr Yokota, best known until now for more straightforward electronic dance releases, claims that his "life became techno". Yet the fascinating thing about the more recent material here is the discreet, even subliminal way it seems to overlay Yokota's original contemplative template with techno's frosty blueprint. "I am my own special creation," insists a disembodied voice emerging from the hypnotic Nisemona No Uta, and the clarity of the moment is almost unbearably beautiful. This is the sort of music you put on while you're doing the washing up only to find it has taken possession of your very soul.
Ben Thompson
November 1999
Licensed from Skintone Records in Japan. Image 1983-1998 is a collection of works from Susumu Yokota from the early ‘80s (three from 1983 and two from 1984) and late '90s (eight pieces recorded between 1997 and 1998). The album's title reflects the theme of this package - the examination of the smallest details involved in sound, art, and emotion --most acutely in the accompanying artwork (photos, collages and paintings) by Yokota. The early tracks, recorded with just guitar and organ, omit a certain eerie mood through their simplicity (and, according to Yokota’s liner notes. inspired the newer tracks). Like the early musical works. the tracks from '97 and '98 again focus on subtle instrumentation, using acoustic guitar but adding a wide variety of keyboards and some chorused female vocals. Those who’re only familiar with the Yokota who trucks in the more electronic - techno, house. IDM and electro-jazz - might want to investigate this facet of this talented musician’s palette.
Andrew Duke
January 2000
No. 39
The concept of Kona (“powder”) and an ounce of metaphysics explain how these three discs can all be the work of one fascinating producer. Tokyo’s Susumu Yokota. Image 1983-1998, licensed by shrewd Leaf majordomo Tony Morley from Yokota’s own Skintone imprint, collects a handful early acoustic (organ/guitar) pieces and ore recent material inspired by these humble beginnings. Predating the techno phase represented by Yokota’s work on Harthouse/Eye-Q (Yokota), Sublime (Ringo, Prism, Susumu Yokota), and Space Teddy (Ebi), Image presents rough sketches for the jolly, carnivalesque melodies that have been a Yokota staple. Fingerpicked musings (“Tayutafu”) tremulous, Vini Reilly-like delay-scapes (“Wani Natte”), taped voices, and analog rales and wheezes flower into spiral-form fantasias and budding tone poems. Like Yokota’s paintings and sculpture of the same period. Yokota’s paintings and sculpture of the same period, the shades are predominantly soft and fluid, bleeding in parabolic curves and streaks, directed inwardly.
Jan 2000
Transient waves
In the summer of 1992, a Japanese economist turned-artist-turned-DJ/musician called Susumu Yokota slipped quietly into the consciousness of the global Techno community. The understatedness of Yokota's arrival seemed appropriate, for here was a musician whose trademark sound was built around a slippage between genres. Not so much in the groove as sliding all around it, Yokota's music was characterised by a delicacy of touch that was evident in even the hardest tracks which graced his first European release, Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection, issued in 1993 by Sven Vath's Harthouse label. Remix work - for Luke Slater and Max Brennan - followed, alongside a number of albums recorded for Japan's Sublime label, as well as two - Sakura and Magic Thread - released by his own Skintone Records. Most of them highlight Yokota's discreet take on Ambient driftworks, Acid House and post-Detroit Techno.
More recently, the London-based Leaf label has issued Image 1983-1998, a comprehensive compilation which casts Yokota in a different light, tracing his elliptical progress through 1 5 years of music making.
There is an unknown quality to certain tracks, such as the early 80s bedroom guitar experiments, or a piece like "Nisemono No Uta" ("Counterfeit Song"), which includes several bathroom choruses of Gloria Gaynor's high-street disco anthem, "I Am What I Am". The humour, while off-kilter, is disorientating. "It is like a slice of film," suggests Yokota via his translator, Mimi. "There's sadness, seriousness, inside the story and it depends very much on the scene the listener brings to it" Our conversation - if that's the right word for it - proceeds in a crab-like fashion. In advance of a scheduled London meeting, I e-mail questions to Tokyo, where they are collected and translated by Mimi. When we meet, Yokota, a genial six-footer, gestures me towards Mimi, who is clutching the sheaf of translated responses which they have worked on together. They are at pains to explain the 'meaning' of Image's title. 'It's difficult to translate," says Mimi, pointing to the Japanese characters on the CD sleeve as Yokota hovers in the background. "This one means 'mind'; this one 'reflections'; this one 'view'. It's got a deeper resonance in Japanese."
A few hours after our meeting, they phone through to pass on the results of a further impromptu conference on the question of the title's 'correct' translation. "We've decided it's Mental Image," says Mimi. "That's better." Beyond linguistics, the tracks on Image flick by like a series of Polaroids, isolating transient events in translucent, solarised interiors. Some of the music is suggestive of the kind of playful electro-dramas realised by Eno and Cluster 20 years ago; elsewhere, there are echoes of John Fahey's elegiac guitar phantasias. "It's difficult to answer," writes/says Yokota referring to the allusive/elusive quality of this music. "It is abstract, rather like the idea of a mental image. The sounds are products of my own memory, including those I did not experience directly, like a deja vu. It's like one scene from the movies of my memory, although I could not point out exactly which movie.”
"I had the idea to create various styles of music as a way of returning to my roots," he adds, the implication being that for a musician like Yokota, the notion of roots now equates to fleeting moments of identification with emergent sonic phenomena.
Searching for an appropriate analogy for a music that drifts at will across the trans-continental data streams, Yokota settles on kona, the Japanese word for powder. On the Image sleeve, which also includes hazy representations of a number of his mixed-media artworks, he writes: "I wished to be kona at the moment of death ... Sugar, stevia, some chemical drugs are a gathering of super-particles. Accumulate some white kona and blow on them. They will scatter and never be replaced exactly in their original form. Like the vagueness of memories."
"It is atmosphere that I'm interested in," he concludes. "It's like powder. Abstract. Free. One breath – pfff – and it's gone."
Louise Gray
December 1999
Private in public
Known mostly for his hyper-funky house and techno output on Japan's Sublime Records, Yokota steps out of the mold with image 1983-1998 by taking one giant, introspective step in. A collection of instrumental tracks Yokota laid down to space himself from his techno, image 1983-1998 is one of those deeply personal works that really sounds like it was never intended for mass consumption. It possesses a light-hearted intimacy and fearlessness that's hard to find in your local record shop. image includes music from two time periods: shore guitar and organ-based songs from the early '80s and more spacious·, electronic tracks from the late '90s. And all of this is in some way influenced by Yokota's visual art, which is nicely catalogued in the image liner notes. Of all the early music, only "Sakashima" sounds truly extraordinary with its crunchy, shifting, barely-audible organ tones. But Yokota's more recent work, particularly "Morino Gakudan," "Kawano Hotorino Kinoshitade," and “Amanogawa," is like glimpsing rare beauty amongst the ordinary. Yokota likens his creative process on image to "Kona," a Japanese word meaning "the assemblage of white grains." image is a very personal vision of beauty, pulsating with all the stuff of life. As Yokota writes in his liner notes, it's "the image- of time reaching the end of the millennium."
Chad Oliveiri
October 11 1999
Retrospective of Japanese musician's intriguing, experimental work.
One of the Leaf label's most evocative and beguiling releases, Images 1983- 1998 compiles the esoteric aural and visual images of Japanese jazz/house/techno chameleon Susumu Yokota. The collection's first five songs were recorded in 1983-84 with guitar and organ. these brief, atmospheric sketches are compelling in their simplicity. Unusually. Yokota has recently revisited these 15-year-old blueprints as stimuli for eight more new recordings.
In the intervening years between recording sessions, techno inevitably exerted a strong influence on the composer, yet Yokota emerges from his dalliance in dance uncertain as to the genre's worth. On his new tracks, Yokota effectively deploys motifs and clipped vocal samples but generally eschews techno’s sounds/dynamics. Instead, he prefers to seek inspiration from (in his words) "reality and everyday life-the food I eat. cats from my neighborhood, how I live·: The implication: Techno is somehow fake or unreal.
Yokota's reservations seem unfounded: Techno is no more (or less) artificial or contrived than any other music. But in trying to pursue his ideal of “real life" music, the composer
has inadvertently created an intriguing and experimental collection.
David Hemingway
November 1999
Mixing Desk
Likewise, the London based Leaf label has earned an equally uncategorisable reputation. The bewitching experiments showcased in Image 1983-1998 [Leaf] **** will further enhance the label's elusive catalogue, whilst confusing those who expect composer SUSUMU YOKOTA to reinforce his reputation as a peddlar of minimal techno.
In a series of sparsely structured yet beautifully constructed mood pieces, Yokota manages to reconfigure the theories of Phillip Glass ('Morino Gakudan'), Oval ('Sakashima') or Durutti Column ('Wani Nattie') without resorting to pastiche. Feeding acoustic elements through his dream machinery, this studio wizard develops an unusually melodic methodology, from within the traditionally restrictive structures of the electro-acoustic boffin community. An ardent advocate of the less-is-more philosophy, the Japanese dream forger has proved that
minimalism in all spheres has a transfixing meeting point. Captivating
Kevin Martin
October 1999
Takashi Yashima
2000
Ambient Confessions of a Japanese technohead
Susumu Yokota’s evocative sounds are mind-altering in the best tradition of Satie and Eno, finds Ben Thompson
Yokota: ‘I am my own special creation’
He idea of an ambient recording that stops you in your tracks may seem too be a contradiction in terms, but Susumu Yokota’s Image 1983-1998 (Leaf) does exactly that. The packaging for this exquisite half-hour selection (first released in the UK last year on license from Yokota’s own Skintone imprint, and now reissued on heavy vinyl) incorporates some rather bewildering samples of Yokota’s multimedia artwork and notes proclaiming his work’s affinity with “kona” – a Japanese word for an assemblage of white grains that, once scattered, “can never be replaced in their original form…Like the vagueness of memories.”
All of which is somewhat off-putting. Until you actually listen to the music.
Too often in the past the ambient tag has been an excuse for laziness; why bother putting any effort into what you do if people are going to be doing something else while listening? Any reprobate can leave a tumble-dryer on for half an hour, drop in some spoken word samples from day-time TV, and wrap the whole thing up in a nice picture of a cloud in the hope that some music journalist will call it a subliminal masterpiece.
But there is another, higher ambient tradition, the one too which Yokota’s record belongs. This tradition goes back too Brian Eno, and before him, too Erik Satie, and involves the painstaking creation of music designed to seep into your everyday existence and change the character of day-to-day life from within.
In Yokota’s case it is not just the sounds he makes that seem to crystallise intangible emotions; his working methods do, too. Image 1983-1998 is not a conventional compilation. The first five tracks – deceptively simple guitar and organ sketches, reminiscent of Jim O’Rourke – turn out to have been recorded in 1983-4. The other eight, picking up on earlier themes and opening them out like a daffodil in a speeded-up nature film, were done a decade and a half later. In between, Yokota previously best known in this country for more generic electronic dance releases such as Frankfurt/Tokyo Connection on Sven Vath’s Harthouse label – claims his “life became techno”.
To find out what he means by this it is necessary to enlist the help of an e-mail interpreter and embark on an interview process that might fairly becalled Japanese whispers. Judging by such earlier Yokotan verbal coups as his likening to acid house to “shrimps jumping up and down” the imprecise nature of this means of communication is an asset rather than a liability.
If Yokota “became techno” in the years after 1984, did he have to “un become” it to go to work again on the music he made before his techno awakening? “For a while I only had time for various forms of house. I was especially into the futuristic flow of Detroit music and the mentality of trance. But in the mid-to late Nineties it all became boring and at this time I realized that the new wave, which had initially inspired me around the end of the Seventies, (Young Marble Giants, Joy Division) was still fresh. I think these bands are my roots and Image was an opportunity for me to express that.”
Joy Division are often cited as a musical influence, but it seems especially gratifying that the magically quiet and evocative music of the obscure Welsh trio the Young Marble Giants should have travelled half-way around the world to warp the mind of a Japanese techno head. “The Young Marble Giants have affected me the most of all musically,” Yokota says; “I can feel deja-vu from them.” The tune on Image 1983-1998 that most strongly bears the Giants’ mark is the enthralling “Nisemono No Ula”, (roughly translated as “Counterfeit Song”.) This hypnotic song fragment also quotes Gloria Gaynor’s karaoke standard “I Am What I Am” to persuasive effect, as a disembodied voice emerges from the mix to proclaim, “I am my own special creation”.
Yokota has released music under a lot of different names, among them Stevia, 246, Prism and bizarrely, Ringo.
Are these separate identities a reflection of different parts of his personality, or just a practical means of getting round the problems caused by working with several record companies simultaneously? “Both of these are true. I wanted to make myself more chaotic, I thought I could find something new from mixing myself up…. but now I only release music under my real name.” Alongside the welcome re-issue of Image 1983-1998, Leaf are also putting out a new Yokota album. Magic Thread, which seems to join the dots between his Techno and Ambient personas (Sakura, the third album in this series that will follow on later this year). Could he tell British listeners what is the difference between these two records? “Image is me looking back at the past with a sense of nostalgia. Magic Thread is the sound of human evolution, weaving ever more intricate patterns from an initial thread of hemp.” Well, that’s that cleared up then.
Ben Thompson
Friday review
March 2000
SUSUMUY YOKOTA allows us to peer into his scrapbook with 13 variations on a
theme first recorded for his own Skintone label. Image re-examines the tonal territory of an· original guitar-and organ template from all conceivable angles. Sometimes Yokota seems to be sawing the track in half, at other times dousing it in interference. Best of all is Morino Gakudan, an impressionistic fragment of stunning beauty. In less imaginative hands such a project would have had you bored halfway through, but these sublime sketches sustain interest to the end.
September 1999
Rob Chapman
A package of musical snippets, visual images and philosophies from one of Japan's foremost
jazz/techno/house chameleons. The initial five songs are instrumental organ/guitar, the following
8 songs inspired by them but recorded over a decade later. Wonderfully imaginative and more
coherent once you read the sleeve notes.
Paul Sullivan
September 1999
Spooky, abstract and minimal musical
musings from Yokota. Try to imagine the
'Blair Witch Project' scored by Mishima on
an acoustic guitar.
September 1999
Album Briefs
Some spine tinglingly beautiful moments are included here, on this leaf (ho ho) through the early, largely acoustic experiments of Susumu Yokota, and it is clear evidence of why his house music stands so far above most of the dross of that genre. Although some tracks here come across as doodies in moments of abstract distraction. That can be forgiven in the light of the fragility and utter serenity of tracks like 'Tayutafu', 'Morino Gakudan', and the childlike wonder of 'Nisemono No Uta' and 'Kawano Hotorino Kinoshitade'
Steve Nickolls
September 1999
SAKURA
“Yokota turns our attention once more to the intangible shadows of sound where fragile melodies are more hinted at then executed, where memory becomes an instrument and where technology leaks colour and light as well as sound”
Paul Sullivan
Third unmissable instalment in gripping Japanese ambient trilogy.
It takes a while to work out what makes Yokota's ambient works- alternating with his more straightforward house and 'techno releases on the Sublime label - such a captivating proposition. The temptation to sit back and let them wash through your bones like a healing spell of early summer sunshine is initially too strong to resist, but once you emerge from the reverie induced by electronic instruments, with harps for innards and drum patterns lovingly constructed from bits of the Young Marble Giants' old skin, it's the sheer physical and intellectual energy that stays with you. Whether mercilessly propulsive (the vital, piano-driven Naminate) or exquisitely thoughtful (Hisen reinvents Massive Attack's Protection as an Oriental gardening anthem), Yokota's mood music always hits its target.
Ben Thompson
October 2000
Susumu Yokota is reputedly best known in Japan for blending House, Techno and jazz together, but over here his more Ambient material is better recognised than his dancefloor efforts. Sakura follows his earlier albums Magic Thread and Image 1983-1998 in this vaguely contemplative vein, and it's very much a quiet stormer of a record.
At first hearing, Sakura just drifted past -it seemed boring, vapid, thoroughly cliched, an absolutely innocuous take on Trance reverie with nothing in any way distinguished or interesting. Second time around, it sounded truly amazing, a perfectly poised amalgam of easygoing chill out and laidback warmth.
There's certainly nothing in any way thought-provoking to Sakura, but its appeal is more than just superficial. Yokota is an adroit and meticulous musician, treading a careful line between austerity and melodrama. The music never sounds forced, it's always laidback and entirely natural, and it unfolds with agreeable, gentle grace. Rhythms ripple and reverberate, sounds shimmer and surround; it's like a bath in sunset luminescence. A track like "Naminote" shows that it is not the result of too much time with a few New Age LPs, a drum machine and a digital delay unit. And, with its fragmentary female vocals and stranded drumbeat, "Kodomotachi" evidences a great ear for space and positioning
Brian Duguid
October 2000
STRAIGHT NO CHASER
You'd have to call this music ambient I suppose, but only because no― one's thought up a term for ambient music that you’re supposed to actually listen to. To slip into PhD mode for a moment: whereas a lot of ambient music is emotionally very general, being designed to make a mood in a room, the tracks on Sakura are as specific as, say, on a Terry Collier album. There's reflective, wistful, optimistic and downright joyful music here. It's wordless and it's not for dancing to (apart from the gorgeous Genshi), and the programming is second to none. Actually the programming is awesome. You think the production's layered and lush only to realise there's actually nothing going on at all. Susumu Yokota’s made a wonderfully subtle album of gorgeous moments constructed from the very simplest of elements. Furthermore, I defy anyone not to buy this after a glance at the lovely minimalist packaging
Jonah Colon
October 2000
Such was the ambient quality of Sakura, Susumu Yokota's third album of last year, that it earned comparison with classics by Brian Eno, Aphex Twin and Global Communication. But
Yokota paints with an even broader palette on this mind-boggling mix of work by himself and fellow Leaf label artists. With more than 25 tracks it takes. in hints of future jazz from the Sons of Silence and slivers of Oskar's gorgeously elegiac Air Conditioning. A glittering and emotive insight into the most engagingly experimental label around.
Ed Potton ****
February 2001
WHEN 'Sakura' first falls into your lap, intact and fully formed, it’s so exquisite you're almost afraid to touch it in case it breaks. Drifting openers' Saku' and 'Tobiume' reveal Brian Eno's ambient efforts as those of a ham-fisted glam rocker, 'Namiote' is everything you hoped for from St Germain's recent 'Tourist' opus but never received, and the whole is imbued with the kind of gentle, soulful warmth you'd find., the best of Terry Callier. The third, in Yokota's series of albums on Leaf (licensed from his own Skintone label), 'Sakura' touches on various genres - deephouse, techno (he's also recorded for Harthouse and Sublime), jaz and even (yikes) 'modern classical' -but deftly kneads them into a unique, organic entity that renders reference points redundant. Yokota is probably far too polite to say so, but 'Sakura'’s message is clear: listen up, mortals, and learn some fucking humility.
Tom Mugridge
October 2000
Japanese techno producer turned ambient wizard completes his “trilogy” on Leaf. Following on from his inimitable Images and the wonderfully indefinable Magic Thread, Yokota turns our attention once more to the intangible shadows of sound where fragile melodies are more hinted at then executed, where memory becomes an instrument and where technology leaks colour and light as aweel as sound. Even on the few occasions when the tempo gets raised. Yokota still manages to make the finest soul-soothing music out there. Incredible.
Paul Sullivan
August/September 2000
NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS
There's another way of capturing the spirit of this extraordinary country, however. Susumu Yokota's new album, 'Sakura', is named after the cherry blossom that briefly floods Japan every spring. As the trees come into flower from the south of the islands, and spread up to the country's northernmost point, the blossom's progress is tracked intently; a national phenomenon, a sign of transience that epitomises Japanese culture's close - but often ignored - relationship with nature and the seasons. "There used to be a road lined with sakura trees close to my home," says Yokota. "I grew up seeing those beautiful cherry blossoms every single spring day."
Actually, Yokota doesn't say anything to us. Interviewing him involves a tortuous process of faxing and translation which only emphasises his detachment from frenetic modernity; he doesn't even have an e-mail account. All this adds to the magical, dislocated quality of his music.
There's another way of capturing the spirit of this extraordinary country, however. Susumu Yokota's new album, 'Sakura', is named after the cherry blossom that briefly floods Japan every spring. As the trees come into flower from the south of the islands, and spread up to the country's northernmost point, the blossom's progress is tracked intently; a national phenomenon, a sign of transience that epitomises Japanese culture's close - but often ignored - relationship with nature and the seasons. "There used to be a road lined with sakura trees close to my home," says Yokota. "I grew up seeing those beautiful cherry blossoms every single spring day."
Actually, Yokota doesn't say anything to us. Interviewing him involves a tortuous process of faxing and translation which only emphasises his detachment from frenetic modernity; he doesn't even have an e-mail account. All this adds to the magical, dislocated quality of his music.
While Yokota initially became known outside Japan for lush house releases (the latest of which, Zero, is out on Sublime), it's his excursions into uneasy ambience for the Leaf label that are most satisfying. The best way to listen to his records, he advises, is, "in the very quiet place and eyes are closed". Which makes sense.
Image 1983-1998 (drawing links between early acoustic experiments and contemporary machine atmospherics), Magic Thread (a gentle concept piece about weaving, obviously) and Sakura are albums both evocative and unworldly, bringing to mind memories and senses while simultaneously being nebulous, unanchored.
Image 1983-1998 (drawing links between early acoustic experiments and contemporary machine atmospherics), Magic Thread (a gentle concept piece about weaving, obviously) and Sakura are albums both evocative and unworldly, bringing to mind memories and senses while simultaneously being nebulous, unanchored.
"I just use some machines and my way of working is very simple," Yokota claims. "I believe my life and background are far more important than the production. I make music to convey my world for people." When he was young, watching the cherry blossoms, he wanted to be a baseball player like most other Japanese boys.
Instead, Yokota became a musician, working at furiously productive speed but often creating spiritual music, and a photographer and designer with dreams of making a film.
On Sakura, the influence of jazz is just discernible (he mentions pianist Chick Corea, transcribed by his translator as Click Corea). But the only person he feels a special affinity with, perversely, is Vincent Gallo. A shared sense of outsider chic, perhaps. Certainly, Yokota may have vague similarities with Arovane and Vladislav Delay, but there's a frailty (like those sakura blossoms), an ethereal quality, a sense of melody refracted from another world, that sets him apart. I cannot explain it in words It is very difficult for me” he says and really, you know exactly what he means.
John Mulvey
September 2000
Rune Hellestad
2000
It sounds much as you would expect from a man who traded in a career as an economist for a life as a conceptual artist: clean lines, purity of thought, careful transparency. It sounds like “a serene exercise in making sense of the world, taking time to watch the patterns fall and think about the meaning of x. It sounds, mainly, and it is beautiful.
Yet while Japan's Susumu Yokota might use his music to create a luminous sense of space and light, bright and stark as a white screen door, `Sakura' is never merely an aid to ambient wellbeing, a little purification ritual to clear away the clutter of the day. lntelligence, subtlety, insinuation- these are the elements that Yokota prizes most highly, and as he shifts effortlessly between the opaque calm of Tobiume and the static seep of Gekkoh, the pizzicato fear of Shinsen or the Labradford siren―song of Azukiiro No Kaori those pristine outlines slowly begin to blur. As aware of Brian Eno, Tortoise and Richie Hawtin as Joy Division and Young Marble Giants, this multi-dimensional mood music, the sound of a minimalist installation sprung uncannily to life, Pretentious? Ahhh 8/10
Victoria Segal
September 2000
Better known for his more mainstream, techno recordings, Susumu Yokota has over the past year or two developed a nice line in trance/ambient tonal pieces, most winningly on last year's lovely Magic Thread album. Sakura is in effect an extension of the same style, featuring exercises in audio balin such as the opening track, "Saku", an aural sunrise picked out in Eno-esque keyboard tints against an ambient backdrop pregnant with cavernous reverb, a presence in itself. Unfolding unhurriedly from echoing loops of harp or piano, Yokota's designs are minimal without being minimalist, even when built from what appears to be a loop of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians,' as on "Gekkoh" the effect is soothing, but not as hypnotic as one might imagine. "Naminote" is the most active piece here, but barely so, its looped jazz piano figure glistening with expectant vibraphone tones before a discreet drum track enters, effecting subtle transformation through a slightly accented offbeat. "Uchu Tanjyo" is more typical, in the way it blends gently shuffling percussion, 'ripples of water, heavily reverbed smudges of keyboard tones and a few mumbled (Japanese) phrases into something that hovers on the edge of formality without slipping into the demonstrative. Cool, calm and collected, Sakura is the most well-chilled album of the year.
Andy Gill
September 2000
You know those scenes in films where someone has, say, been involved in a car crash, and on the way back to consciousness they drop in on a place where everyone is wearing white and has a soothing voice, and someone has fogged up the camera?
Bend your ear and this is playing in the background. After a series of projects in techno and dance under a camouflage of different names, Susumu Yokota continues to develop his ambient side. Ambient music all too often sidesteps any musical thought (such as how to start or end a piece) in favour of formless and anaesthetising journeys through rainforests. But these tracks, windows on a series of musical atmospheres that stretch forever, still contain tension and release in their harmony. The rhythms, even at such slow speeds, are designed to work off each other, rather than just phase in and out in the hope of fortuitous interest. The instrumentation chimes with carefully echoed electronic pianos and synthesised bells, guitars and harps rather than drowning washes of sustained chords. And, as an overall shape, it rises to a beating centre that reminds you of Yokota's jazz and house interests, so the recording never flatlines. Sakura floats and provokes, but the intricate view
is never obscured by fluffy clouds.
Pascal Wise
September 2000
Yokota has a somewhat multifarious musical output. In his homeland Japan,
he's best known as a prolific producer of· deep house and off-kilter techno, but over
here it's his output of ambient music that has caught the most attention. Sakura is part of the latter, a 50-minute long, gently undulating electronic soundscape that you can easily become lost in. The emphasis is on textures rather than tunes, only a few of the tracks have any beats (the ones that do don't go much,above 70bpm) and the melodies are so simple and repetitive you stop consciously noticing them after a while. They're still working away though, altering your mood in sometimes relaxing, sometimes a little unnerving ways.
Laurence Phelan
September 2000
SUSUMU YOKOTA is one of the few musicians who has succeeded in developing Brian Eno’s original ambient music prototype: music in which not much appears to happen, but which can
both enhance your environment as background music and reward your attention when you turn it up. Yokota's music is not as “unlocked" as Eno's - it's built on more regular repetition but he combines these repeated figures with less rigid elements that gives his work a vital balance of structure and fluidity that most ambient wannabes never master. Sakura is the third in a series of Yokota's ambient albums released on Leaf and it is the most enjoyable. In fact, it is pretty much flawless, apart from the cover - the kind of kitschy picture you might find on the wall in a hotel you wish you'd never checked into.
Mark Edwards
October 2000
In the 1990’s ambient music sounded torn between two extremes: light New Age rubbish and “chilled” compositions that were little more than Mogadon dance with the volume turned low. Very few artists captured the warmth, intrigue or intellect of the 1970’s and 1980’s stalwarts Brian Eno, Harold Budd and Jon Hassell, With Sakura, Japanese DJ Susumu Yokota has clearly grabbed the baton, fusing gorgeous, beguiling ambience with the subtlest hint of the techno for which he is renowned. This is the kick ambient music needs: a one-step cure for work stress and club fatigue.
Stephen McKenzie
January 2001
Why should one person′s minimalist ambient loops seem like wisdom embodied in sound while another′s just sound like the aimless noodlings of someone who bought a load of gear and doesn't know what to do with it? Beats me. But maybe the person to ask Japanese house and techno DJ/producer Susumu Yokota, whose recent introspective releases have surely made him the most interesting fish in electronic music’s stillest pond.
Sakura takes up where the wonderful Magic Thread left off, weaving figures of amoeba like simplicity into 50 minutes of music that seeps into your bones, creating the same nameless, but powerfully emotional effect as its predecessor. Yokota′s techno leanings peep out on a couple of tracks― Genshi and Naminote – But overall, Sakura owes more to 20th Century classical minimalism than the post-Motown sound of Detroit, and bears comparison with Eno′s finest '70s recordings.
Zen Mastery 9/10
Simon Ounsworth
October 2000
He's Japanese, y'know. No, really! Anyway, Susumu is also something of a god-like genius of the ivories. And stuff. His rare skill is the ability to mix sky-scraping Jazz dynamics to icily cool quasi-classical ambience and then (occasionally) paste the whole lot over
some startlingly swinging beats. Naminote flows like a juicy great river through-your skull, irrigating as it moves, while Azukiiro No Kaori is content to let the voices collide and perform odd little dances between your ears. If you worry about the lack of clipped harps and rueful, amnesiac sound paintings in your life then, frankly, you've got too much time on your hands. Use some of it to get
outside and buy this
Rob Fitzpatrick
September 2000
Just when you thought Susumu Yokota's excursions into organic ambience couldn't get much better, he comes up with this, which is, frankly, a stunningly beautiful record. With 'Sakura', effectively the third and final part of a trio of ambient works, Yokota enigmatically marries the irreverent acoustic dream weaving of the previous two albums, 'Magic Thread' and 'Images 1983-1998', with the explorative electronic rhythms of his earlier work on Harthouse and Sublime. Hence we get the soothing, subtle techno of 'Genshi', with the gossamer like threads of acoustic melody on 'Hagoromo', and the Penguin Cafe inspired strings of 'Hisen' move effortlessly through to the delicate swing time jau of 'Naminote'. Susumu Yokota continues to show himself as one of the most gifted producers on the planet, and, not before time, the early works of Eno and Aphex Twin have been joined on their pedestal. You never know, 'Sakura' may even make ambient music fashionable again. SN • 10
Steve Nicholls
September 2000
"I'm a house DJ, yet I've always turned my eyes on avant and new music. So I'm not a house DJ who is very conservative." If there's a word to sum up Japanese DJ/ambient sound sculptor Susumu Yokota, it's progression. Since mapping out experimental music some 15 years ago, Yokota has never stood still. It's why this genial gentleman has been an economist, an artist and, of course, a DJ. It's also why his discography reads like an A-Z of dance music genres, releasing anything from Germanic techtrance for Svan Vath's Harthouse label, through to breakbeat lunacy and Detroit-style funk. Yet right now it's his seamlessly beautiful, utterly beguiling ambient clickscapes that Yokota is most praised for. Last year's 'Image 1983-1998' compilation and last February's hypnotically serene 'Magic Threads' put most electronica to shame.
Why? Because Yokota's delicate yet arresting intricacies offer genuine emotional refuge. Being functional or repetitive doesn't come into it.
"Yes, I don't do this for putting my music into a certain category," he says. "I do this for expressing my emotions and I think each listener can find and feel things in my music."
Nevertheless Yokota has already become restless with ambience. His new album, Sakura, is the third and final instalment of his introspection-through-avant smart trilogy - indeed his next release after 'Sakura', 'Zero' will see him exploring dancefloor-oriented pastures again.
So like everything else he's done, Yokota has become 'bored' with ambient. On 'Sakura', he's already going forward, drip feeding subtle deep house and even vocal lines into his familiar blip-bop patterns. What hasn't changed is his commitment to creating evocative music from empty space and microscopic details. It firmly nails Yokota as a master craftsman to rival Brian Eno. Surprisingly, though, Yokota's having none of it.
"I feel there're limits to my technical skills of programming and sampling. I want to come closer and closer to fresh things, which I really seek now."
It's called progression.
Neil Davenport
October 2000
One of my favorite musicians returns with yet more new material, and this is serious stuff. Musically rich and, production wise, totally lush this album shows there’s more to ambient work than a few Eno samples, a dolphin call and a poem. Balmy tones and layers of gentle music come at you in waves whilst Yokota, ever the master, squeezes every last drop of soul from his music. For me one of the albums of the year.
Ben Wilcox
October 2000
This album marks the third in Yokota series of celebrated ambient outings, following on from the acclaimed Magic Thread and equally well praised Image 1983-1998. His ability to create blissfully enchanting music has often been compared to that of Brian Eno, and that standard is certainly maintained on this latest offering. Cyclical sounds rise and fall into each track, with every addition evolving into a new aural sensory treat. He’s also not afraid to let things build until a kick drum drives the rhythm where it feels right.
Mostly though things are kept supremely ambient and serenely simple. Fantastic sounds to immerse yourself in completely, then just drift away.
Tom Kihl
September 2000
Will the real Susumu Yokota please stand up? Hot on the heels of two other very recently released albums, here are two more from the prolific, and talented Susumu Yokota. On the one hand we have the fragrant, delicate Sakura album, a series of fascinating pieces soaked in . idiosyncrasies - particularly the masterfully original remake of Soft Cell's Bedsit/and (Kodomotach .On the other is the pulsing, rhythmic dance music tour de
force Zero, which is stuffed full with gloriously rich electronic house-grooves. It i takes major talent to produce such differing but equally intoxicating music - what on earth will his next few albums (scheduled for next week, no doubt) be like?
Tom Magic Feet
September 2000
The third quiet album from a man best known until recently for quirky house and breaks. He’s heard here as an inscrutable master of the aural haiku, but any Eastern attitude in this music reflects the concerns of his influences. Sakura - cherry blossom - is also a brand of pastel crayons, which seems appropriate. You get a dozen pieces, simply made from organic sounds - electric piano through delays, off-balance loops of guitar, violin and harp, not much beat. There’s a lot of reverb – it’s dub in reverse: he floats extra sounds above a track or seeps them into its crannies. It sounds beautiful. Think Cluster and Eno, early 90s ambient, Steve Reich; repetitive music that sounds hand-made and human. DJ10-4
Andi Chapple
October 2000
Japanese genius Susumu Yokota delivers another beguilingly beautiful project previously released on his own Skintone Imprint When you understand the title means 'cherry blossom’ In the producer's native tongue.It.ls easy to get some sense of the tone of his effortlessly organic double pack. From the drifting opening strains of Saku to the shimmering deephouse of Genshi and the celestial ambience of Tobiume, Yokota's somnabulant sounds slip effortlessly between the realms of profound introspection and insidiously rhythmic exploration as exhibited on the piano driven jazz of Naminote. Gorgeous and essential
Dave Stelfox
September 2000
After Ken lshi, Yokota was the next Japanese artist to have his work released in Europe. His prolific output fluctuates between deep house orientated grooves and soothing summer ambience, and this explores the latter. Leaving behind the insistent drone of the city, he switches to the softer, water coloured tones of nature holding back with the beats and letting the melodies carry everything along. His recent 'Fancy Flavour' track on the latest instalment of Leaf's 'Invisible Soundtracks' series is a good reference point as this is steeped in the same beguiling sentiment. Starting with a bleached skeleton of melodies he gradually adds flesh to the bones over the 50 minutes running time and there is a real sense of progression here. However, whilst the music of many artists is seasoned with tongue in cheek self-mockery, this piece is universally heartfelt and on the odd track like 'Kodomotachi' can' sounds almost too sincere. Perhaps I'm just a cynic and cringe too easily.
TC• 7.5
Tony Cooper
September 2000
Akiko Ono
2000
This is a delirious cocktail for head-trippers. Skintone label boss Susumu Yokota succeeds by exploiting an overactive imagination, whether it's
Native Americans riding Ry Cooder-style slide guitar, cascading music boxes, molten harps, drifting chamber quartets or swing-driven jazz
bands. Eminently tasteful and ambitious, the golden opener alone blends Miles Davis' 'In A Silent Way', Brian Eno's 'Music For Airports' and Phillip Glass. Rejecting cheap ambience in favour of a rich reverie, Yakota's dreamscapes will melt the staunchest cynic, his crystalline melodies,
sonic smudges and beguiling blurs breathtaking vindications of the border-crossing process. Although renowned for his dancefloor circuitry
on Sublime, this master of flow motion has proved that minimalism plus melody can equal levitational momentum. Sure, there are moments when
his distant horizons fade just too far into the background, but overall this is an exotic return to form(lessness) for the Japanese magus after the
somewhat stale 'Magic Thread'.
Kevin Martin
October 2000
Japanese producer enters rarefied ambient realms. Throughout the '90s, Susumu Yokota has excelled at techno, house and drum & bass. But like many veteran dance artists, he eventually yearned to create more contemplative music. Yokota has done this exceptionally well on a triology of works that began with 1998's Magic Thread, continued with 2000's Image 1983-1998 and now concludes with Sakυra. On this 12-track CD, Yokota weaves delicate webs of cyclical melodies and moist dronescapes that tantalize the sense, while narrowly averting new-age drippiness. It’s a thin rope Yokota treads, but never falters. When rhythms do emerge, the music's essential placid beauty still remains. At its best (“Saku,"“ Shinsen,"“ Kodomotachi"), Sakura holds its own with Brian Eno's On Land and Apollo as an ambient benchmark.
Dave Segal
February 2001
In the grand tradition of Japanese minimalism, Yokota's supremely ambient sound odysseys beguile and delight, moving ever-so-slowly towards their gentle climaxes with gorgeous
precision. Hard to believe he also makes banging techno!
September 2000
He's not your average techno type, Susumu Yokota. He rejects commonplace images of Japanese technology, and has instead withdrawn into a more traditional vision. This album therefore, is named after the country's cherry blossom, and you know, it's really very nice low-key electronica indeed.
October 2000
Phantasmal electronic with warmth and depth. Worshiped at home as one of Japan's biggest house/techno DJs, Yokota's reputation in the UK and Europe is based around his reflective ambient releases,
such as Image 1983-1998 and Magic Thread. Sakura, with its exquisite spiralling threads of sound weaving a gently stained ambient canvas will only serve to enhance that reputation.
Paul Johnson
October 2000
‘A spliff and a sofa – proper chill-out music.’
Nick Warren
November 2000
Akiko Ono
2000
The follow-up to last year's similarly diaphanous Image 1983-1998 album, Sakura sees the "Japanese Eno" at the peak of hispowers. As with Eno's classic ambient fare, Yokota deals in shifting, luminescent sound fields and makes a virtue of repetition. Whether it be the slowly revolving Fender Rhodes figures of Saku, the murmuring vocal samples and odd percussion of Uchu Tanjyo, or the jazzy pianos of Naminote, the pattern rarely alters: a quietly evolving cloud of choice musical colours that seduce by stealth rather than by grand gesture. Here and there the cool tones are broken up by chattering drum machines (Hisen) or "underwater" bell tones (Kotomotachi). An exquisitely chilled delight.****
David Sheppard
December 2000
One of Japan's best-known DJs, Yokota was one of the first producers to have his music released outside his native country. These days he is building a reputation for a more reflective thread in his music. Sakura is the third in a series of evocative albums with a heritage in house, techno and jazz. Not so much ambient as ethereal, Sakura's shimmering washes of sound and subtle textures bring Zen into the 21st century
Hari Kunzru
October 2000
SUSUMU YOKOTA’s Skintone label is designed to facilitate musical projects with an introspective feel rather than dancefloor bent he is perhaps better known for (Yokota is one of Japan's biggest house/techno DJs) It’s these releases, 'Magic Thread' and ‘Image 1983‐ 1998', that Leaf has brought to a wider audience and enjoyed enormous critical acclaim for in the UK and Europe `Sakura' is the third album of this reflective creative thread, bringing in subtle elements of deep house and vocal lines to culminate this intial trio of beguiling ambient works.
2000
The term 'ambient' is generally enough to make me shudder, implying a cod-Ibizan mixture of saccharine, 'easy-access'
melodies with a few cinematic samples chucked in for good measure
Thankfully, Susumu Yokota's third album of ambient music hails from the opposite spectrum, following a tradition that aims as much to make the listener think as well as to soothe The first thing that you notice about his music is it's intense, intangible quality - enigmatic melodies that evoke a sense of melancholy, stillness and tension
Incorporating vocal snatches and mute tribal elements, the music seems to evoke snatches of one's long-forgotten past. Deeply meditative and lending itself to introspection, it's a beguiling piece
Alberto
September 2000
Before the early days of house, and all it offered a, young Susumu Yokota, the productive Japanese artist responsible for weaving unique curiosities of innocence and playful spirit. Recently Yokota has been returning to these mid eighties days and with each visit he forages gently through ever greater depths of a maturing cerebral ambience. Progressing on from Image 1983‐ 1998 and Magic Thread, the medicinal qualities of Sakura are a sophisticated solution to the world weary less in touch with the inner child, to which previous efforts have appealed.
It's dream(life) like qualities ebb therapeutically through subtle melodies that work to freshen, perhaps even cleanse a person of clinging monotony or fatigue.
Around the incomprehensible yet beautiful vocal loops of Azukiiro No Kaori and Kodomotachi writhe smooth wisps of rhythm that lead through the surprise shimmering jazz of Naminote,
Should you immerse yourself in Yokota’s Sakura the most menial of things can be as glorious as a fine wine, free from impurities or a Sunday afternoon spent reading your paper cover to cover or an evening concluding with love or the prospect there of.
Andrew Morrison
September 2000
GRINNING CAT
“
Infinitely charming and eminently seductive Grinning Cat is yet more evidence that Chief Wizard Yokota is a master of building dream worlds”
Paul Sullivan
Upbeat piano driven follow -up to Sakura. Like an album length version of DarioG’s Sunchime, but good.
lf this fearless Japanese Ambient adventurer carries on churning out beautifully crafted new albums at his present rate people are going to get the impression that this stuff is easy to do. Picking up where Naminote – one of the stand out tracks on last year’s surreptitiously intoxicating Sakura – left off, Grinning cat tears off in that obvious new direction in the manner of a scalded one, and is soon so far around the block it can barely see the shops. Great lost Dollar instrumental B-sides blend with a mighty triangle sound and the clearing of a storm of rain to worryingly potent overall effect, and Fearful Dream is the stuff of John Carpenter′s worst nightmares. As to where Yokota might be heading next, the sax-break on Tears Of A Poet has a deliciously alarming ring to it
Ben Thompson
June 2001
Japanese polymath sets up home with girlfriend and three cats, then makes album about it. Sweet?
Three albums for the Leaf label have established Susumu Yokota - DJ, designer, photographer and musician - as the new master of ambience. As this fourth collection of crackles, chimes, claps, dusty horn samples and fractured piano melodies proves, however, his music is far more complex and stimulating than the dull background hums usually associated with that genre. Yokota claims Grinning Cat is born of domestic bliss It sounds anything but soppy and satiated. Certainly, there's an easy grace to the music, especially to the Satie-esque flurries of piano, but an oppressive atmosphere is constant. There's Zen tranquillity here, of a kind, but Yokota captures the stifling humidity of his homeland equally well, transcending Japanese designer cliches
John Mulvey
March 2002
The Shelter, Dublin
GIVEN that there have been more wishy-washy chill-out compilations released in the past few years than there are grains of sand on an Ibiza beach, one is entitled to feel a little weary at the prospect of engaging with an electro-ambient artist like Susumu Yokota. But this quiet, unassuming Japanese musician/producer is truly a gleaming pearl among stupefying swine.
The specialist music magazine The Wire voted his Sakura record Electronica Album of
the Year in 2000, while his most recent ambient release, Grinning Cat, has met with an equal level of enthusiasm.
This particular gig - one of only a handful of dates in Britain and Ireland, some of which saw Yokota share a bill with the avant-garde composer Philip Glass - was all about the languid, slow-motion moodscapes. The dark and doomy intimacy of Dublin's newest music venue, the Shelter,' was an appropriately nocturnal setting for a set which seemed to spring more from the dreamtime of the unconscious than linear, waking life. Although looking like a wide-eyed student, Yokota exuded a Zen-like calm as he flitted between his Apple Mac laptop, a turntable and an acoustic guitar.
Detractors will scoff that it it's just some bloke fiddling with a computer for an hour, but Yokota ministered to his equipment as though performing a sacred religious ritual. But even if there wasn't much of an element of visual spectacle about the show the music itself was thoroughly absorbing and involving.
In terms of reference points, Brian Eno's ambient catalogue comes to mind, as does early Aphex Twin - but Yokota ditches the psychotic tendencies of the latter in favour of a warm, humanitarian glow. Much of the first half of the set was given over to the Grinning Cat album, which creatively samples the hypnotic, repetitive rhythms of another darling of the American avantgarde, Steve Reich. Also swirling about in the mix are subtle, looped melody lines that seem to appear and disappear before your very ears. In fact, the whole sound is so mercurial, it's impossible to catch it or pin it down with mere words. Certainly, the audience of beardy, bespectacled Open University types lapped it all up, staring intently at the stage as if in a trance.
Nick Kelly
April 2002
Prolific Japanese techno/ambient producer Susumu Yokota has won many hearts around the world with his elegant excursions into sound. Albums like Magic Thread and Sakura have highlighted his talent for concocting magical soundscapes that ebb and flow as gently as the wind but contain a deceptively bewitching power.
Grinning cat is simply one more flight of fancy for Yokota, though is no less potent than previous works for the listener. Using some newly obtained pet cats as inspiration (he allegedly felt he had met the Cheshire Cat from Alice ln Wonderland such are the child‐like mechanics of Yokota’s mind), he has built another wonderful world of sounds and shapes,
Hypnotic piano loops are a firm Yokota favourite and on the opener ‘Imagine’ they’re played through a mist of gentle synth until meeting a ghostly female voice drifts and other, discordant sounds. Already you can sense that this music is as lucid and weightless as the stuff of dreams, but this is only one aspect of his child‐like innovations. On ‘King Dragonfly′, he enthusiastically indulges in some hip hop rolls and subliminal chanting as we‖ as disembodied sounds and errant clunks.
Throughout the LP, strange instruments and sound effects float in and out of the aural scenery like mysterious shadows, creating a feeling of caprice and whimsy.
Yokota has no problem with stopping dead in his tracks and changing direction, though he generally keeps the odd motif recurring so as not to stray too far from hypnotic remit of looped rhythm and sound.
Tracks like 'Sleepy Eye’ see Yokota at his lullaby esque best, a simple piano melody is fed through FX that give it a dreamy blur, before being joined by fairy‐tale glissandos. His techno influences come to the fore on the beat‐ridden but innocuous ‘Cherry Blossom’ while 'So Red’ uses acoustic guitar and disembodied voices in a kind of hard drive blues track.
Overall, Yokota's music will appeal to those who have a brain to massage or a child still alive in their heart.
Paul Sullivan
May 2001
YOKOTA is a prolific dude, and his fifth album in four years is a worthy successor to last year’s Sakura. The same organic, disorientating methodology is in evidence here. The standout track, Lapis Lazuli, cuts up Ravel to great effect, while Fearful Dream is all weird loops and beatless mayhem. Though the penultimate track, Flying Cat, is marred by the kind of clattering breakbeats that dance acts use when they are looking for a free jaz sound, by then you feel that Yokota has more than earned the right to play around a little.
Rob Chapman
May 2001
Put it down to language barriers or plain old cultural differences, but Japanese producer Susumu Yokota always offers a fresh perspective on dance music. Prolific to the point of hyperactive, his sublime house and techno and his textured ambience always brings something new and different to the table.
This new work, released on his own Skintone label, which documents his 'wonderful life' with his girlfriend and assorted pet cats is no exception; most of the album has a hazy, half heard feel, which only serves to enhance the floaty, piano led atmospheric beats and then decidedly organic, ethereal feel.
An evocative, uniquely atmospheric work.
Richard Brophy
August 2001
Prolific Japanese techno/ambient producer Susumu Yokota has an uncanny ability to weave silent narratives from an imaginary range of sonic materials. With previous LP’s like Sakura and Magic Thread having already converted many to Yokota’s peacable but compelling vistas Grinning Cat offers more intricately arranged patchworks. Viewed best as a kind of mood inhancing journey, the album takes the listener through moments of aching melancholy, snatches of innocuous melody, throbbing electronic pulses, hinted at fairy-tales and a dizzying array of texture and sound. Infinitely charming and eminently seductive Grinning Cat is yet more evidence that Chief Wizard Yokota is a master of building dream worlds
Paul Sullivan
1999
Single of the Month
The Leaf label is becoming the most inspirational label on the planet. Yokota describes this album as being inspired by his cats, yet this is as far from the bland pap of Lloyd Webber as you can get. A gorgeous feast of downtempo abstractions unfolds, with classical strings overlaid over jazz rhythms or perhaps a heartbeat, tender yet resonant piano, or acoustic and found sounds like wind chimes and handclaps. At times it hints at the exquisite spiritual minimalism of Arvo Part, at others an organic, otherworldly acoustic soul. Then again, sometimes it soundtracks the saddest film ever made. From playful and light-hearted to mysterious and menacing, this album amply displays the free spirit of its creator’s musical visions. One of the most beautiful and beguiling albums you will ever have the pleasure of listening to ever.
Wiseblood
July 2001
It's been a while since I last had a good ambient zulu boogie so hearing Susumu Yokoto's river deep compositions has brought me a little piece of nostalgic joy. Drifting strings and pianos cut up and fuse into the electronic farmyard beats and somewhere a child is born. All that good shit. Yokota is Leaf’s biggest selling artist and it's not hard to see why, there's a very finely tuned musical mind at work here making music that is appealing, intricate and emotional.
Edward Blake
Japan's Yokota has always been able to craft sublime ambient excursions or stylish dance-floor tracks. This sonic adventure is neither. Here, Yokota draws from electronica, dance, jazz, modern classical, gamelan, avant-garde and more, to create something that transcends both continents and genres. What's more, it has the uncanny knack of being simultaneously forceful, yet delicate. Take King Dragonfly for example, where Enoesque synths and fluttering pianos contrast with resolute breaks and Asian cascades. Or Tears of a Poet, where Debussy collides with Jazzy film-noir trumpet sighs. This album twists, swells and exudes a chilled brand of euphoria. Pure joy.
Paul Yak
June 2001
This sounds so fresh and invigorating, it's the musical equivalent of that tingle you get from a cold shower. It lifts the mood with hand claps, wind chimes, heartbeats, acoustic guitar, snake rattles, voices and sampled loops. This is no hippy paradise, though; the sound is very urban with a debt to Steve Reich and Phillip Glass. You hear the city in the subtle ambience recorded in different (presumably Japanese) rooms and used as instead of the grey of the
recording studio. It's good.
Mick Robertson
June 2001
Following on from Leaf’s release by Maintoba which has reviewers falling over themselves to find superlatives to describe the album, grinning Cat pushes the boundaries even further. Susumu Yokota is a Japanese producer with a fondness for the Leaf label, having mixed their Leaf Compilation to great critical acclaim. Grinning Cat is being licensed to Leaf via Yokota’s own label, Skintone. What you’ll find is typical of Leaf, expectations are impossible. Grinning Cat moves from minimal, distorted, distant piano lines to more abstract and ethereal sounds, to scratchy, disjointed electro style percussion. It can at times be moody, yet never dark. Often the textures can come across as whimsical as the title may suggest, though never simple. Why Grinning Cat? Yokota says he moved in with his girlfriend, and three cats, and playing with the cats was “like having parties every day at home.” it’s about as close as you’ll get to understanding Yokota’s profound musical pieces.
Clarke Nova
July 2001
Sakura, Japanese producer Susuma Yokota’s last album for the Leaf Label, was a quiet hit last year, critically lauded and selling far better than expected. A producer of electronic music in many styles, Sakura was the moment when his more ambient came to the fore. Grinning Cat, then, has been hotly anticipated in some quarters. It is, as you’d expect, along the same lines as Sakura, with looped samples and melodies interweaving in an understated, majestic fashion. Those expecting any real deviation from that pattern will be disappointed, but for the rest of us it’s just another great album. Comparisons have been drawn most frequently with Brian Eno’s Music for Airports but, whilst Yokota is undoubtedly working in the same area, Grinning Cat shows off his peculiar knack for melding different elements into a spine-tingling whole. Pipes, chimes, guitar, hand claps and all manner of other instrumentation ensures that the sound, although it seems remarkably fragile, never falls prey to the excesses of ambience or ends up as glorified elevator muzak
Paul Doyle
vol 2 issue 7
The World is Sound
The world, eh? It's a weird old place, alright. So much bad stuff (war, wasps), yet, paradoxically,
lots of good things too. Ignoring such grave attempts at profundity, here is a choice selection of said 'stuff, both ace and arse, to be found around the globe within the parallel world that is music.
SUSUMU YOKOTA
Hailing from Tokyo, Yokota is a crafter of slightly patchy House/Techno by day, but, more interestingly, an arranger of soft, silken electronic sounds by night. He releases here via the consistently creative Leaf label, key players in the field of bringing innovative worldly delights to these musically staid shores. Try checking the drifting ambient beauty of albums such as 'Sakura' or 'Grinning Cat' without picturing a solemn Japanese wizard dressed in white, casting musical spells of calming, intricate delicacy. Here he is eating what may well be a kebab.
February 2002
WILL
“‘Will’ sees him revisit the housey side of his character and bless us with eight simply sparkling numbers, all of them delicate to the touch and full of the clever little touches that have come to typify Yokota’s music.”
Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins
The third album this year from Mr Yokota and there's still no need to alert the quality control police. Although he's more usually associated with avant-garde electronica, 'Will' comes over like a Japanese Jazzanova, with the magpie eye of his abstract productions turned to focus on eight tracks of global house beats. Deep-fried samba ('Red Door'), eerie ambient ('Black Sea') and trilling pianos ('Rabbit Earring') litter his nest and 'Will' stands firm as both a demonstration of Yokota's versatility and a distinctive and distinguished album in its own right.
Paul Clarke
October 2001
Susumu Yokota has emerged as the leading light of The Leaf Label's roster, partly through being phenomenally proficient, but largely though being immensely talented and versatile'.
‘Will’ sees him revisit the housey side of his character and bless us with eight simply sparkling numbers, all of them delicate to the touch and full of the clever little touches that have come to typify Yokota’s music. Ostensibly deep house, but more about jazz than anything else, ‘Will’ is immediately uplifting and should immediately be installed in house DJs boxes everywhere. Unfortunately, its vinyl release is limited to just 2000 copies, so you’ll have to move quickly to snag one. But trust me, you’ll love it. Oh, you will. You will, you will, you will.
Tom Robbins
October 2001
Japanese production whizz Susumu Yokota returns with the sixth
release through London's highly individual Leaf label, hot on the heels of his excellent Sakura and Grinning Cat LPs. Sounding more Western but no less inspired, Will skips along to a sturdy beat, further pursuing the beguiling, club-bound path he explored on last year's acclaimed Mix EP. As he grafts intoxicating rhythms over infectious melodies, Yokota's effortless fusion of classical and contemporary influences a beacon to seeking a purer form of house. Retaining the trademark Yokota warmth and naivete, Will is as fresh as daisies and just as sweet.
Andrew Richardson
September 2001
As people still reel from the impact of Yokota’s cerebral trio of LPs (‘Magic Thread’, ‘Sakura’, and ‘Grinning Cat’) he shifts again, and after introspection, comes the sound of him letting his hair down, with the jazz house of ‘Will’. Don’t confuse this with his other LP ‘Zero’, due for release at the same time, as it is frankly pants, because this is a glowing example of the deep, soulful, musical house music that Yokota does oh so well. The quality control is high, and this is Yokota in good time, celebratory mood, with the delicate Samba rhythms and twinkling piano of ‘Red door’, and the irresistible shuffling breakbeats of ‘Pegasus Man’ being the best examples of his deft dancefloor touch.
Steve Nickolls
October 2001
Tsutsui Yoshiaki
2002
There's a perceived wisdom in dance music that a truly creative artist can't also be a prolific one. They're mutually exclusive, so the theory goes, and quality control goes out of the window once a producer's output goes beyond a certain level. Look at Massive Attack, Leftfield or LTJ Bukem - it's years before they get round to making a new album, but it's always worth the wait. Japanese producer Susumu Yokota, however, confounds this theory.
Yokota has two albums out in the next few weeks, following on from 'Grinning Cat' released a couple of months ago. Yet there's no let-up in the quality from this highly talented producer, who can turn his hands to an impressive array of styles with consummate ease.
While the critically acclaimed 'Grinning Cat’ was basically an experimental electronic listening album, Susumu's latest projects, 'Zero' and 'Will', are in much more of a house vein. 'Zero’, released on the Exceptional label, is the most readily accessible of the two. The recent single, 'Could Heaven Ever Be Like This', is joined by 11 other tracks of joyous house music. and if you like the New York garage sound of Kerri Chandler and Joe Clausell this will be right up your street.
'Hallelujah', for instance, is simply divine. Susumu's musical roots lie with acid house and techno and you can also hear these influences coming through as he gives the music a subtle twist.
"Actually, 'Zero’ is the final album of a series only released in Japan.' he tells DJmag. "The first album, '1998". was released in 1998, then '1999' was released in 1999. and ‘Zero’ was released in 2000. I wanted to express the changes in dance music at the end of the 20th Century with this series. Some people see 'Zero' as having a Chicago house flavour, but for me it's a compilation of the past 10 years of house music."
Meanwhile, 'Will' is a limited edition vinyl only release. which previously came out on Susumu’s own Skintone label in Japan, home to five previous albums including 'Grinning Cat'. It was recorded at the same time and is very much a sister album but with a house flavour.
“I didn't want to limit my creativity," explains Susumu. “and I've always been interested in a wide range of music. I want to express 'the common and 'the sacred' in my view of the world." ‘Will’ is a far more reflective collection than 'Zero’, with a warm and jazzy Latin feel enhanced by some wonderful keyboard melodies. Check out 'Pegasus Man’ to see just how blissful this man's music can be.
With such a wide range of musical ideas you might expect Susumu to be forever searching out new music and checking out other producers for inspiration but this is far from the case.
“I was inspired by the vibe of the house and techno scenes rather than any particular artist. When I listened to the music I just thought, 'Maybe I can make my own music'. I don't really know many other artists as I hardly ever buy records."
He must be one of the most prolific producers around, so what drives him to make such a wide variety of music?
“I never think my music is perfect, so I always have a strong desire to produce new tracks. I prefer making music to listening to music that someone else has made."
If that isn't enough, another album will be coming out on Sublime Records in Japan at the end of this year and there are already plans for three or four more albums next year.
Susumu also designs much of the sleeve artwork himself, as well as pursuing his other interests including photography, swimming and trekking. So, all you slackers out there, take a leaf out of Susumu Yokota's book before he puts you all to shame.
'Zero' is out 28th August and 'Will' follows on 3rd September. Both released on Exceptional.
Matthew Duffield
August 2001
THE BOY AND THE TREE
“What at first seems like stillness soon starts to resonate, while what seems like random and arrhythmic percussion, is revealed as mere rhythmic complexity.”
Lauren Phelan
Inspired by his move into the fresh air of Tokyo’s outer suburbs, combined with the wolfish ecological thrust of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated classic Princess Mononoke, Susumu Yokota takes his listeners for a long walk beneath the branches of ancient trees. Nature respires, sprites dance and gentle breezes set up their own half-conscious rhythms, Sounds shimmer and ripple as if they are happening by themselves, but it’s not hard to discern Yokota’s hand carefully shaping and directing the music’s easy flow of effects. Although the mood is amiable enough on the delicate “Fairy Link” and the undulating “Grass Tree and Stone”, a darker view asserts itself on the desolate, frozen stasis of “ Blood And Snow”.
Ken Hollings
September 2002
The mercurial soundscaper, DJ and producer finds inspiration in the ancient woodlands of the southern Japanese island of Yakushima. Released in 2000, Susumu Yokota’s widely-acclaimed Sakura was such a exquisite piece of electronica it seemed destined to cast a long shadow over his career. But its follow up Grinning Cat, the more dancefloor oriented Will and Sound Of Sky, and Waters Edge (a collaboration with Rothko) all saw him restlessly covering new ground. The Boy And The Tree is very different again.
Its his deepest album yet: keyboards′ guitars and samples are used to evoke an atmosphere of aromatic forest coolness cut with sun-filled glades. Ritualistic percussion loops drift in and out and drive on the extraordinary processional of Red Swan. Yokota also shows his House producers knack with a vocal hook, but here the voices call from the distance in a way that is eerie and seductive.
These beautifully worked tableaux equal Yokota’s best work and on this sort of form he’s peerless.
Mike Barnes
2002
Yokota is something of a musical phenomenon, a supremely gifted artist who transcends genres with ease and though prolific, continues to innovate and surpass himself. After the lush tones of 2000's Sakura and last year's wildly inventive Grinning Cat, he returns with an album partly inspired by the Japanese island of Yakushima and his weekly forays into the mountains that surround the suburb of Tokyo where he lives.
Fusing the percussive tones of xylophone, harp, berimbau, wood drums and the hypnotic bells of Gamelan, this album swells on a tide of rhythm, drones and chords hanging in the air like mist. He combines naive, playful melodies with orchestrated rhythms that owe some debt to Philip Glass, wielding space and silence as an
instrument in itself.
A master of dynamics, sudden melodies flower inside your ears, while atmospherics hover in the distance, whispering to make themselves known. The spiritual voices and flutes of Secret Garden suggest a musical quest, before chiming into life, revealing the fruits of inquisition. The ritualistic Red Swan sways with a hypnotic gait, triplet strings sawing back and forth against the bells, a magisterial vista reminiscent of a Kurosawa movie.
Echoing the sounds and sensations of nature that Yokota so obviously loves, The Boy and The Tree is an ambient work that shouts to be heard, a musical tapestry sewed with a magic thread.
Mat Anthony
2002
IT has become increasingly hard to succumb to techno music's onward march into the future of sound, because most of it - even the Aphex Twin's - seems to sound the same, and thus rather passe. Susumu Yokota is the exception that proves the rule.
When he first appeared in the early 1990s as Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection, he made bangin' trance like everyone else. He has since matured into a one-man ambient avant-garde via a series of magical, meditative albums which have been salivated over by everyone from Philip Glass to Radiohead. Among those in the know, The Boy and the Tree feels like something of a highbrow event, and deservedly so. Where, before, Yokota's music has always been centred around spellbindingly minimalist piano composition and portentous hi-tech atmospheres, this time he has changed the blueprint considerably. Inspired by walking amid the rampant natural wonders around Mount Fuji, the 41-year-old uses more organic, even ancient sounds - Red Swan is like a gamelan orchestra of his own virtual imagining - for an entrancing, deeply spiritual hour's listening. Yokota's message to techno conformists: the past is the new future.
Andrew Perry
October 2002
Woollen hatted folkies and Jarvis Cocker, it seems, aren’t the only ones discovering the joys of rugged pastoralism. Ambient sound collager Susumu Yokota is a recent rustic convert, too. Since moving to the suburbs of Tokyo two years ago, he reckons the panoramic calm of mountains and rivers now inform his once architecturally urban music. Much of his mercurial touch remains strong, but the supposed scent of damp grass and decomposing leaves are some way off. Less eerily frail than the deceptively beautiful ‘Magic Thread’ album, here Yokota utilizes oriental percussion harps and reverb guitars to fashion his most spiritually uplifting music to date. If the clatter clapping of ‘Plateau On Plateau’ sounds like a Hari Krishna rally, then that’s because it really does. Yet don’t let that irk your ears. ‘Fairy Link’ is a tumbling tapestry of wiry harp strings, rusty pot tappings and radiantly ethereal chants. Few can make such mathematically precise music sound like it’s beamed in from the heavens. Yokota may be getting back to earth, but his gossamer genius remains on a higher plane. 7/10
Neil Davenport
September 2002
This Is Yokota back in ambient territory, after his excursions into deep house,
And it’s his best work since Sakura. A hypnotic, Zen, yet not always tranquil album that loops what sound like very organic sound sources (natural found sounds and some traditional Japanese acoustic instruments), until there's an ever-so gradual accretion of tones and atmosphere. What at first seems like stillness soon starts to resonate, while what seems like random and arrhythmic percussion, is revealed as mere rhythmic complexity. For those who like to pay close attention to their background music, this is as good as it gets.
Lauren Phelan
September 2002
Yet another beautiful, ambient work from this acclaimed Japanese multi-tasker. The album’s about a journey through a rainforest – and, fittingly, it feels like a slow-tempo spiritual trip. Unique in mood, approach and coherency, it proves Yokata’s standing as a master of the imagination. ****
Tim Perry
September 2002
The hyper-productive Yokota-san allows a brief pause in his stream of deep house classics to make that ‘difficult’ album. But give this time and you’ll wonder why all music isn’t like this sparse collection of strange global sounds. Ancient and modern Yokota’s going down in history.
September 2002
"Yokota makes ambient music suffused with human emotion and an otherworldly charm. It's his deftness of touch and
remarkable ear for making the most lovely noise out of the weirdest of
samples that marks him out from the pack. He says this is the soundtrack to
his 'dream story' - listen to the celluloid unravel before your ears."
Kieran Wyatt
September 2002
Kate Wharton & Max Cole fire off some questions to Tokyo in the wake of the release of electronic, Susumu Yokota’s latest release on Leaf, ‘The Boy And The Tree’.
How has jazz influenced your music?
I wasn't always interested in jazz music. What I got interested in at first was 80's fake jazz.
After that, 90's ambient music started to involve jazz and I get more interested in jazz. While I was producing 'Sakura' I, was often listening to Return To Forever/Chick Corea.
Was ‘Naminote’ influenced by any particular jazz record?
Not particularly, but it was influenced by the psychedelic jazz which I create in my mind.
Have you always listened to Western more than Eastern music?
I really don't listen to music someone else has produced because I'm always listening to the music which I'm working on. I like Bolonese Gomelan and Indian music but I'm also into Western acoustic music. I often listen to house and jazz music as I also do dance music... DJ, that is. I think I'm listening to Western music more these days.
Are you interested in the discipline of traditional musician In Japan? Or in any particular traditional Japanese instrument?
I'm very interested in it, but it's hard to fuse it with my music. Kodo is easy to use for sampling.
Now I'm trying to use Gagoku .The problem is that the Gagoku sound and rhythms are harder to use, in comparison with Bolonese Gomelan.
I cannot read a music score and cannot play instruments well. However, all tracks of 'The Boy and The Tree' have my guitar and the guitar-noises I made. I'm now thinking about constructing the music in equilibrium with sampling, beats and my own guitar sound or voice, which makes a deep and stereophonic sound.
Do you think the effort of sampling and constructing work on a laptop is more lonesome than making music in the days when live interaction was key and musicians would be round each others houses jamming all night?
Although I think both of them have a pleasurable side to them, I've never felt lonely when I was making music by myself. Ideas and inspirations come irrespective of whether I jam with someone else or not.
'The Boy and the Tree' seems to involve more eastern and world music sounds than your previous albums, as in the bamboo, flute on ‘The Colour of Pomegranates’ and the strings and percussion on 'Red swan'. Are you moving away from pure electronic sounds towards more contrasting textures?
Since the concept of 'The Boy and The Tree' is huge trees, forests and natural energy, traditional world musics were the obvious choice. The natural mystic and the mystery of traditional world music are directly connected. I wanted to make the album more structural, beyond electronic sounds.
I love the piano on ‘King Dragonfly’. Do you play any instruements or do you prefer to sample?
The Boy and the Tree’ was inspired by time spent in the mountains near Tokyo. Composers often say that when they move from the city into more natural surroundings, they become inspired in a new way. Do you feel there is a connection between music and natural forms?
I've been away from the heart of Tokyo for three years. The natural surroundings have been giving me energy instead of information. My ideal lifestyle would be to spend half my time living in the heart of Tokyo and the other half in a place surrounded by nature.
What is your most essential music technology?
Having my own imaginative power. I'm very bad at computer or electronic equipment so it takes long time to get used to using technology. However if I have strong imaginative power for what I want to do, I can make the music I want.
Do you think house and techno is limited by its inability to transfer well to any situation except a club? Is this why you started to make albums that are more about home life rather than night life?
I think it is good to transfer well though different media - arts, films, or fashion - but I don't think it has to spread necessarily.
What part of a composition would you usually start with? Do you spend more time on the effects and perfecting the sound on a micro-level, or on arrangement and organising the sound structure?
It usually takes one year to produce an album. I work on other albums at the same time. At first I pick up samples and make a lot of phrases, then mix them up as sound little by little. Then I spend about three months to perfect the sound on a micro-level.
Who are your favourite musicians creating music now?
Although I don't have any favorite especially, I respect Vincent Gallo because he creates not only music but also films and paintings - almost all kinds of arts.
‘Lapis Lazuli’ is a stone referred to in many Buddhist texts, like the Lotus Sutra. Did you mean to refer to Buddhism or does this track’s name have a purely geological meaning?
Although it's the name of a stone referred to in Buddhist texts, I really like the sound of "lapis lazuli" and the color.
Are you inspired to make music/art by any particular books or philosophers?
Although I was interested in philosophy and sociology before, now I create naturally according to my identity which is built up though my experiences.
Kate Wharton
Max Cole
2002
Japanese producer Susumu Yokota is as productive as a team of sweat shop workers geared up on industrial strength angel dust. but despite his prolific output everything he releases is worth a listen. This, his latest album, sees Yokota return to the ambient sound he last explored on ‘Grinning Cat'. However, instead of merely serving up banal whale-shagging soundtracks. Yokota integrates organic. Ethereal sounds and ethnic influences into his arrangements. In the wrong hands this kind of 'crossover’ work could sound disastrously wrong, but as the Gamelan hum of ‘Plateau On Plateau', the hypnotic chants on 'Secret Garden' and the Dead Can Dance-meets-Cocteau Twins sound track of •’Beans' all demonstrate. Yokota is adept at effortlessly integrating these elements into his dreamy framework. ****
Robert Brophy
September 2002
Susumu Yokota isn't hiding anything on his latest release. Just as the title suggests, there's a definite wide-eyed appreciation of nature running throughout, to the degree that some of the sound samples even seem cliche. Also heavily utilized are a variety of Asian instruments - what sounds like live or sampled koto, zither, harps and bells. Together, these components yield very interesting results, and are probably why his series of ambient records has proven successful. "Live Echo" is sparse, yet surprisingly funky, and "Thread Leads to Heaven" finds serenity through a simple electronic melody-not a birdcall or choral sample to be found. "The Colour of Pomegranates" and "Grass, Tree and Stone" suggest a kind of East/West fusion, something like a less ambitious Tortoise project. Still, The Boy and the Tree comes off more sincere than premeditated.
Dan Sicko
Janurary 2002
Susumu Yokota has a distinguished fan base that includes Philip Glass and with every new project he receives raptuous praise. In essence, The Boy and The Tree is ambient music with brains. Inspired by the river and mountains close to his house in the suburbs of Tokyo and the island Yakushima in the south of Japan, Yokota’s music is infused with mystery and life. Using traditional instruments alongside high production techniques this album attains a timeless, ephemeral air. It is interesting to learn that Yokota says of the album it ‘is me, and this is my dream, story’.
Rebecca Heald
Japanese producer Susumu Yokota is one of the most prolific dance/electronic artists of ‘em all, and while he hasn’t been as productive in 2002 as in previous years, this new work more than compensates for his absence. Focusing predominantly on ambient textures, ‘The Boy’ manages to fuse traditional Asian and Oriental influence with an electronic interface. Normally such notions would have us running for the hills – anyone remember Deep Forest? - but here Yokota makes his amalgamation of tribal chants, Gamelan atonality and Cocteau Twin-informed ethereal passages sound nothing short of mesmerising. All other ambient artists should take a leaf from his book
8/10
August 2002
As the term chill out becomes ever more abused, Susuma Yokota returns to show how ambient music should be done, “I go to the mountains a few times a week. Walking among the big trees I can hear my heartbeat and also the sound of the earth echo,” explains the Japanese producer. Fragile yet intense, fluid yet angular, minimal yet complex, ‘The Boy and the Tree’ is a truly evocative union of nature and machine. From the Boards of Canada-style creepiness of ‘The Colour of Pomegranates’ to the ethereal hypnotics of ‘Fairy Link’, the stripped down minimalism of ‘Rose Necklace’ and the Eastern ambience of ‘Red Swan’, this is a breathtaking piece of electronic music.
Andy Thomas
September 2002
There aren’t many artists who can utter sentences like “nature gives me energy. Natural, wonderful power makes me refresh,” without sounding like a brainstorm in the Timotei marketing department. But the guileless, serene ambience of albums like ‘Sakura’ and ‘The Boy And The Tree’ has a rare ability to lead even the most hard-bitten cynics to gush similarly bile-free lines of their own. Starting out as a techno producer, Yokota released records on Harthouse in the early Nineties and continues to fire out deep dancefloor records at a prodigious rate today. “I’m most pleased when I’m making music, and I still have many new possibilities,” he says, sagely. Crazy but true: In 1993, Yokota was the first Japanese artist ever to play at the Berlin Love Parade. He didn’t do an ambient set.
Tom Mugridge
October 2002
The Boy and the Tree is jointly inspired by Yokota's experience of Yakushima Island (a world heritage site) and the anime Mononokehime, directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Yokota moves outside the house again, heading deep into an ambient glade. In the real world itself he has indeed relocated away from Tokyo’s nerve centre, getting slightly nearer to nature. This is readily apparent in the forest―like feeling that pervades the first few tracks, Yokota concerned with the steady accumulation of atmosphere, teeming with natural phenomena. He uses almost exclusively organic sound sources, but with an artificial slant imposed by the act of looping and layering. Slow‐ twang guitars are a popular choice,
floating into the clouds beside a panoply of small folk instruments, Flute whorls and pattering bamboo, koto (or kora?), zither, sitar, gongs, gamelan cascades or prepared piano, all used to form cyclic patterns of wonderment, weaving a scintillating lattice. As the disc progresses, its bass presence grows and repeated voices creep in, with later tunes like “Red Swan“ and “Future Tiger" developing the motion of a ceremonial procession, filled with handclaps and chanting, the density and intensity of Yokota’s loops increasing by the minute.
Martin Longley
2002
Impressive planet-straddling by Japanese ambience master.
Over the past four years, Susumu Yokota has emerged as a confusing presence in electronica circles: a technocrat who makes rather bland house records and frequently dazzling quasi-ambient ones. (I)The Boy And The Tree(I) is number six of the latter, contemplative strain, one purportedly influenced by walking in the mountains outside Tokyo. Actually, the vision conjured up is more of a man locked in a small room, blurring snapshots of a much wider world on his hard drive. Temple processions, African chants, echo-laden guitars, equatorial chatter, muezzins in neighbouring states, hurdy-gurdies and Liz Fraser-esque warblers all jostle for space in Yokota's compositions, but the clutter of global sounds is often more oppressive than expansive. There's nothing terribly original here - Eno & Byrne's (I)My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts(I) and Holger Czukay's ethnographic forgeries explored similar places, allbeit with cruder gear. Nevertheless, it's hard not to be enchanted by Yokota's dense, disorienting, exquisitely-judged work.
John Mulvey
2002
With more than a couple of albums under his belt (well approximately 25), one could be forgiven for thinking that Yokota
may have run out of ideas. However, that is not the case, and this new venture for The Leaf Label is another wonderful release from the Japanese genius. An album of textures, Thoughts, visions and soundscapes, ‘The Boy And The Tree’ is strikingly beautiful representation of Yokota’s fascination with nature. 'Live Echo' sees reverbing crashed metallic drums take centre stage, while attractive keys, growing guitars and heavily altered vocals add an extra dimension. ‘Secret Garden’ is an unspoilt hideaway known only to Yokota, and the place can be visualised courtesy of floated airy synths, refined Japanese keys, Medieval spiritual vocals and earth moving percussion. ‘Red Swan’ shows the influence of other parts of Asia on Yokota’s sound, as shaked bells, an elegant minor keyed melody and a pained siren invokes apparitions of a rustling far eastern market. 'Future Tiger' looks to India for its mazy melody, while intricate horns, screeching birds and praising vocals combine beguilingly well. Yokota is a true master of ambience, who thinks nothing of baring his soul and sharing intimate secrets with his listeners.
Jon Freer
2002
Susumu Yokota's modus operandi is to construct each of his albums around a specific mood and atmosphere; they're not concept albums as such (there is no lyrical narrative here), more
extended meditations on a theme. In this case, the boy of ‘The boy and The Tree’ is Yokota himself, and the tree is one of many on the Japanese island of Yakushima that are several thousand years old. As you might expect then, 'The Boy And The Tree is a highly personal. Deeply organic work that refuses to be classified as merely ‘ambient’. Yokota seems to have a third ear that allows him to hear the trees talking among themselves, the grass rubbing together as it grows, and the molecules of the air Expanding and contracting Over the course of the day, Then reacting these sounds through the media of electronics, percussion and found sound. Yokota’s work is constantly evolving and has now reached the state where it does not require your attention, it demands it; the places that Yokota can take the listener are inaccessible even to heavy users of psychotropic drugs.
Gillian Nash
October 2002
If you want to turn the "relax" knob to eleven, pick up the latest from Japanese wunderkind Susumu Yokota. You may remember him from the massive Grinning Cat album from a few years back. On his latest disc, The Boy and the Tree (Leaf), Yokota continues on the ambitronic tip, lulling the listener into an opiated dreamstate with organic percussive textures and melodic repetition. No wonder Philip Glass is all over his shit
December 2002
The world of Susuma Yokota is a mystical realm where timings are manufactured and inconsistencies stretch the boundaries of programming. Though technically inspiring, this is not a mechanical homage but clearly a product of observation, a reflection on nature where a chime caught by the wind performs a chaotic time signature. Innocent, resonating forces collide in an addictive manner that belie formal (Western) structure yet strike a deeply familiar chord – the very structure of our own consciousness. Susumu Yokota has created an atmosphere of unparalleled harmony. Philip Glass and Thomas Newman will doubtless be aware of this brilliant artist.
Crispin Turnkentine
2002
As Susumu says "The boy of The Boy And The Tree is me, and this is my dream story. There is an island called Yakushima in the south of Japan, which is designated as a world heritage site. It rains a lot there and there are many trees that are two or three thousand years old. It is a very mysterious island." What more can I say? Beautifully minimal, this album sets a dreamy atmosphere and a sense of spirituality. The music flows through chilled moods and vibrant dreams with elegance, it is almost classical in its composition. It is a touch of the orient with
simplistic drum beats and gentle chimes, in tune with nature and just a bit new age. Very pleasant.
Oriana
Issue 193-29
Of all the Susumu Yokota records Leaf have issued in recent years, this is the first not too be instantaneously hooky. Unlike his Sakura or Magic Thread albums, The Boy and The Tree isn’t powered by strong rhythmic grooves and this throws you at first. After spending some time with the album though, the compositions begin too come alive. They take shape and the beauty of the album is revealed. Pieces like ‘Fairy Link’ are perfect examples of this phenomena – the harp and gamelan percussion uniting perfectly too create a rich listening experience.
Laurence English
December 2002
Tsutsui Yoshiaki
2002
2002
Without wishing to go overboard, the master returns. With the only thing matching his sublime musical talent being his level of productivity (this is about his fifty-fourth album this year), Susumu Yokota returns from his recent house-based excursions for Exceptional for another instalment of sumptuous ambience on The Leaf Label. Effectively the follow up to last year’s ‘Grinning Cat’ (one of the best ambient LPs of 2001), Yokota translates the inspirations of his escapist trips to the Japanese island Yakushima and the mountains near his Tokyo home, into a transcendent experience. Utilising what sounds like traditional Japanese instrumentation, and some fascinatingly elusive vocal textures, Susumu Yokota yet again manages to make time stand still, and everything outside the confines of his music seem trivially irrelevant. A great follow-up to ‘Grinning Cat’ and, more importantly, proof that Yokota is one of Japan’s finest musicians.
Steve Nickolls
September 2002
A STRONG year for music filed under the rubric of ambient, world or contemporary. The finest CDs in these areas didn't so much rattle their cages as quietly dissolve and redraw genre boundaries in mesmerising fashion. The year started with the re-release in expanded form of the 1980s classic Pirates Choice by defunct Senegalese outfit Orchestra Baobab. It sold so well, the band re-formed to record the divine Specialist in All Styles, an equally gorgeous blend of old-style Cuban music, dance music and West African sensibility. In The Boy and the Tree Japan's Susumu Yokota perfected his Zen experiments in sampling and sound layering. The result was hi-tech studio music that evoked stone, feather and wood and
provided evidence that contemporary serious music and the popular music avant-garde occupy the same head space. The same could be claimed for Long Walk Home, Peter Gabriel's finely detailed and hypnotic score for the film Rabbit-Proof Fence. In Krishna Lila San Francisco's dj Cheb i Sabbah eschewed mixing high jinks to present often unadorned Indian classical songs of startling beauty, the occasional studio enhancements blissfully restrained. And the CD of the year? Anouar Brahem's Le Pas du Chat Nair, in which a trio of oud (Arabian lute), piano and accordion created a spellbinding blend of European Gypsy music, Arabian tradition, Argentinian new tango and Erik Satie's
Lynden Barber
December 2002
His last album the Grinning Cat won critical acclaim in the eletronica field and his latest release can only enhance his reputation as one of the most influential Japanese artists. Each track fills the ears with a bizarre range of ambient sounds from across the globe. Expect to hear Eastern style instrumentation with lead electric guitar all perfectly formed to make the opening piece The Colour Of Pomegranates of particular interest to devotees of this genre. Red Swan places soprano soaring voices with Tibetan style percussion in a heady mix yet this is no mismatch of styles. The following simplistic riff could be aimed at those under fives, but grows quite rapidly into a delightful adult instrumental 'threads Leads To Heaven that gets pleasantly stuck in the mind. I don't expect MOR fans to find any comfort in these dozen abstract collages, but those putting prejudices aside will soon appreciate the many musical levels expressed within the sounds. I suppose its a roundabout way of saying that it takes time to fully appreciate the work of any masterpiece and Yokota has created another one.
Philly
Issue 41
For those that get to know Susumu Yokota at this point in time, the surprise - can not be much bigger. Susumu Yokota released many excellent records under different monikers and offering different
styles during the last ten years.
It all started when the German trancelord Sven Vath offered him a contract with Eye- O back in 1992. But things only accelerated after this. At least one album saw the light every year, and every time Susumu Yokota surprised with a different approach. As Prism he released two deep house albums, Cat, Mouse and Me was a more break-beat-inclined album. After this Yokota took time to create two more experimental works entitled Magic Thread and 'Image 1983-1998, which came out on his own label Skintone. His mainstream album, cunningly entitled 1999, foreshadowed much of the retro disco now kicking off in the UK whilst the critically acclaimed 'Sakura' revealed him to also be an ambient composer with his own singular vision.
The Boy and The Three is Yokota's eight release for The Leaf label since 1999. And again this Japanese musician offers proof of his talent. His approach heads off very
2002
The Boy & The Tree is Yokota' s eleventh album in eight years. The man is not only one of the most prolific musicians of his generation, but also without a doubt one of the most imaginative. He has equally made his mark playing techno, ambient, jazz and electronica, always taking his audience by surprise while buiIding a surprisingly consistent piece of work, making him one of the most respected composers around. Yokota's follow up to last year's blissful Grinning Cat and similarly excellent Will is yet another fascinating recording. Contrasted and impressionist, The Boy & The Tree is a delightful colIection of radically atmospheric compositions, built around ephemeral sonic trances, in the tribal sense of the word. From the opening moments of The Colour Of Pomegranates to the closing bars of Blood & Snow, Yokota delves into ethnic sonorities, using traditional Oriental percussions and instruments combined with founds sounds to focus on the most fragile aspects of music and life and create one of the most haunting pieces of music heard in recent times.
Yokota admits a certain fascination for nature, particularly feeding on the mystery of the island of Yakushima, a designated world heritage site home to hundreds of secular trees, situated in the south of Japan.
He also names one of the most successful animated films in Japan history, Mononokehime, a mystical tale depicting the battle between animal gods, as a source of inspiration for The Boy & The Tree. Yokota' s delicate compositions resound with spiritual references. Chimes, prayers and lamentations all contribute to the hypnotic effect of this record, while the tone of the flutes, tables and stings, intrinsic unworldly elements in the constructions, deflects the electronic characteristic of the record by injecting some vital energy at the heart of each track.
Ethereal voices are integrated in the lush soundscapes in astonishing fashion, never really being prominent, yet exercising an incontestable pressure on the music by stressing the ephemeral nature of life. Yokota' s mastery at carefully organizing sounds together and crafting intriguing melodies is more obvious here than on any of his previous releases. It seems as if each component has a dedicated role to play, affecting the general mood of the listener while not entirely connecting with the physicality of its source, be it human. Yokota has perhaps produced with this album his most intimate work. Moreover, perhaps will it prove to be too intricate and intense for some. There is no doubt however that The Boy & The Tree is his most soulful and best record to date. A must.
Like a long, slow walk through a cool forest or an afternoon snoozing in the grass watching clouds, Susumu Yokota’s The Boy and The Tree LP is a mystical, earthy and folksy Japanese ambient journey.
Magic Thread, Sakura and last year’s Grinning Cat albums have earnt Yokota a special place in people’s collections all over the world, making him the Leaf label’s biggest selling artist. Brian Eno and Radiohead are said to be fans. The Wire named Sakura album of the year and he has supported Philip Glass in concert. It’s certainly encouraging to see people’s desire for ambient music extend past the recent glut of generic Ibiza chill out compilations.
Yokota would be better known by some for his house production. German trance ‘meister’ Sven Vath released Yokota’s first house album on Eye-Q in 1992. There have been innumerable compilation appearances and remixes, some under such curious aliases as Ringo, Prism and Sonicsufi. But despite the growing popularity of his beatless releases, Yokota has no intention of giving up house. ‘I’m still producing house and want to continue for a long time,’ says Yokota. ‘It feels natural for me to do both dance and ambient, it’s a balance that exists within me.’
Following in the footsteps of thousands of years of Japanese folk music, Yokota’s ambient output captures the serene natural beauty of his homeland.
Having recently moved from the city, Yokota now visits the mountainside ‘a few times a week’, travelling from his home in the Tokyo suburbs. ‘The smell of grass and trees, the air in the woods makes my mind clear’, says Yokota, ‘and it gives good effects for making music. Walking amongst the big trees, I can hear my heartbeat and the echoes of the earth.’Yokota is a man with his fingers in the soil, as much as on the keyboard.
Equally inspiring for Yokota on his The Boy and The Tree, was cult anime film Mononokehime, which explores the ‘beautiful thing’ that happens when in-tune humans meet the raging gods of nature.
‘I’m trying to achieve that beautiful thing. There is always fear, rage, and ugliness existing behind beauty. I have been trying to express ki-do-ai-raku (the four emotions; joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness) through music. I would like to express even one’s hidden emotion with reality. It’s my eternal goal.’
Somehow Yokota does succeed in capturing the unseen, the mystical, the ‘ugliness behind beauty’. The Boy and The Tree features moments of extreme fluid dreaminess, with sounds that seem to echo back to you from a far off mountain.
In other moments the building rhythms and chanting are unsettling and full of dread. The combination of sampled African and Asian voices, traditional string and wind instruments, combined with Yokota’s own beats and guitar playing do not fail to express ‘the origin, root, and hidden parts of nature and humans,’ as well as sounding fantastic.
In many ways The Boy and The Tree could be likened to a soundtrack to a Baraka-style film on Japan. This filmic quality is something Yokota would be very interested in perusing. ‘I want to work on a film soundtrack very much,’confirms Yokota. ‘I would like to work with Jean Pierre Jeunet and Vinsent Giaro and if it’s possible, to work with an old director, Parajdanov. As I always produce my album like a film soundtrack, I dream that a film which has my all soundtrack music will be produced.’ However The Boy and The Tree is so evocative of Yokota’s landscapes you will be able to clearly imagine your own film.
So get yourself a big nori roll. Light up the incense. Assume the lotus position. Put the headphones on and be ready for a spiritual musical experience.
Bim Ricketson
December 2002
Wider Press
Susumu Yokota
Calm and movement: the bookish Susumu Yokota.
A shy technocrat of the ambient/ dancefloor crossover, 41-year-old Susumu Yokota's prolific
career took wing in 1992 when German 'trancelord' Sven Vath released the bespectacled Tachikawa resident's fledgling mantras on Frankfurt's Eye-Q label. Subsequently Yokota has
lived a double musical life, churning out every variety of beat-laden house or sub-house styles (often under splendidly gauche aliases like Ringo, Prism or Sonicsufi) for various international labels, while attending to an ever more bewitching series of ethereal ambient releases for London's Leaf label and Japan's Reel Musiq. It's a division of labour the man obviously relishes: "The two cannot be separated, they are like Yin and Yang, calm and movement, or the body and the mind. It feels natural for me to do both dance and ambient, it's a balance that already exists within me."
Yokota's ambient LPs - particularly 2000's plaudit-garnering Sakura - bulge with pointillist whirls of sound, lovingly teased from threads of guitar and electric piano, that recall the most beauteous moments on Brian Eno's Another Green World or Harold Budd's Luxa. But Yokota maintains that his influences lie elsewhere. "I was initially only interested in things like Marcel Duchamp's ready-made artworks, and only later started making tracks because I was fascinated by the sampling techniques in house music", is all he will vouchsafe. And as for the 'Japanese-ness' of his sound: "I don't try to express it, but it appears in my music naturally. I try not to be tied by any styles and express freely. This is in common with many Japanese today, it is each one's personality now."
Sakura (Leaf,2000)
A gorgeous cloud of music. Echoing Fender Rhodes and sampled strings with enough
grit to locate the music at a safe distance from ambient blandness.
David Sheppard
1998
With our new digitized, hyper-informed century underway, genre collision in music - the blending and clashing of musical forms previously considered distinct unto themselves – seems to be occurring with more and more regularity. Today traditionally academic composition techniques such as the gamelan-inspired minimalism of Steve Reich are found flirting with hip-hop, the ghostlike echoes of Jamaican dub are found merging with the quantized rhythms of techno and acoustic guitars traditionally used in folk and blues traditions are incorporated into electronic compositions.
This continual dialogue however takes an interesting twist in Susumu Yokota’s case. Yokota, who has become one of Japan’s most prolific and esteemed electronic artists, enjoys creating expectations in listeners before hitting us sidelong with a gentle but firm jab to the chin. Although Yokota’s recordings borrow from house, ambient, disco, postrock, minimalism and techno at will, the uniqueness found in Yokota’s recordings come less from such genre fusions than his music’s unique juxtaposition of “good” and “bad” taste. Playing with the distinctions we make between things, his approach combines earnestness and absurdity.
Yokota's approach suggests a Houdini act of sorts. Composing within a particular style's recognized boundaries, he gives the impression of allowing them to bind him down. But just when you think he's been quelled by their rules and regulations, the chains break, the cage magically opens, and Yokota comes out unscathed. It feels as if Yokota is smiling a wry grin as he knits his compositions into a unique and especially mesmerizing fabric. It's a magic trick he has mastered.
Mostly known in the Western Hemisphere as a purveyor of leftfield atmospherics, Yokota could be seen to be taking part in a conceptual music lineage founded by French composer and prankster Erik Satie. Satie, who specialized in sparse and somber solo piano works that used silence to great affect - referring to his work as musique d'ameublement (or "furniture music") in recognition of furniture's subtle influence on our environment whether we are aware of its presence or not - is often recognized as the progenitor, or indeed, first practitioner of ambient, or incidental music. Satie's concept was famously appropriated by Brian Eno for his various theses on ambient music, and Yokota adds new contradictions to the dialog his two predecessors began.
As opposed to the sustained moods Satie and Eno exercised, however, Yokota's work changes your reception of it often. Take the song "Shinsen" from last year's Sakura, where a delicate harp loop bends outwards, greeted ever so gradually by a billowing analog synth, before intertwining in a pointillist synth staccato. Its nods to Steve Reich, Cluster, and Eno may not be the most novel of reference points. And indeed, it occasionally veers dangerously close to New Age. But such tendencies are idiosyncrasies in Yokota's work. Funny, absurd, cheesy, yet utterly gorgeous, Yokota's track seems to be fucking with us for a laugh.
"Beauty is boring," he deadpans via e-mail from his studio in Tokyo’s Tachikawa-city suburb. "[Beauty] has no imagination if it can't hold its opposite next to it. That's why I think it's important to consciously include irony and paradox in my work. Even children are not only pretty beings. They're more complicated than that. They are free and sensitive, but also cruel."
Yokota's statement is emblematic of his methodology, approaching 2oth-century idioms in a fashion akin to, and influenced by, Pop Art, Dada, and Surrealism. Indeed, although his first musical forays occurred as a 10-year-old armed with an acoustic guitar, Yokota's professional background was as an artist. "As a job, I first did visual art," he says. "And though I find it very hard to explain in words, my visual art and my music are very affected by the other."
"The fusion of avant garde and pop has been a major theme in my work. And I feel it is quite clear the way Pop Art and house music have a point of contact in 'sampling.' I think [Marcel] Duchamp's Readymades dealt with this explicitly."
Take Yokota's recent album Grinning Cat for example. A reference to Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland, it's also loaded with associations to head shops. Yokota, perhaps drawing a link to his own cheshire personality creates a surreal and chimerical tone that delights in its flights of fancy. The most recent of his ambient releases Grinning Cat is the latest in a series of recordings for Britain's Leaf records that began with 1998's Magic Thread, the
retrospective Image 1983-1999 – which found Yokota presenting five early guitar and organ works in their original form before forming the remaining part of the album with various reworkings/remixes of that material - and Sakura.
Nonetheless, since his immersion in electronic music in the early' 90s, Yokota has pursued a distinctly varied and prolific output that has resulted in, at last count, 20 albums, not to mention countless 12-inches and compilation appearances. Indeed, in his native Japan, he is one of his country's bestknown practitioners of a stylish and joyful deep house (released on Sublime and Harthouse records under various guises including Ringo, Prism, and Stevia) he began making early in the last decade.
"I started programming with a computer because I was fascinated with acid house at the end of the '80’s" he explains. "After my position as art-director was terminated, in 1991, I started to make music since I had the time. Initially, I didn't think I could be a musician." Despite his modesty, it only took a little over a year for Yokota to gain the attention of the German king of trance himself, Sven Vath, who heard a bootleg and signed Yokota to the Harthouse label. Through Vath and the reception of Yokota's consequent debut album, the aptly titled Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection, Yokota became the first Japanese DJ to play Berlin's famed Love Parade. Any doubts that a composer capable of such whimsical minimalist delicacy can rock a party of thousands need only listen to his longplayer Will, where Yokota glides through a postdisco house fervor amid rollicking breakbeats.
Here, the solitary contemplation featured on his Leaf albums finds its extroverted kin. Predecessor to Will – which include last year's Zero, the third of Yokota's "year series" following 1998 and 1999 - also find Yokota flexing his New York garage skills, combining elements of Joe Clausell, early Trax recordings, and the funky-ass bass licks of early Kerri Chandler. Like Chandler, Yokota approaches his house material with a distinctly textural approach, creating a warm "live" sound, with sunny piano glissandos and drifting bell patterns.
You can hear it on cuts like "Fake Funk," where his use of live percussion draws a lineage between late- '7os garage legends and the broken-beat sound gaining popularity of late. Perhaps it's not surprising then to find the likes of Compost's Kyoto Jazz Massive remixing Yokota on Zero Remixes, an album that also features techno-prankster Si Begg, Roy Davis J r., and Bugz in the Attic.
With Leaf records just now beginning to release Yokota's club-related material, he seems destined to attract a far larger and more diverse audience, which can only make him happy. After all, the more people he mesmerizes with his hypnotic beats and melodies, the wider his grin becomes.
Issue 7
Alex Georgopoulos
2001
HOUSE
Set to throw a global party
His latest release looks sure to boost this Tokyo sound artist’s growing worldwide following.
Susumu Yokota's new CD, "zero," is a brilliant showcase of the Tokyo sound creator's artistic endeavors, which reveals him stripped of experimental masks and all set to throw a party. Like fellow Japanese DJs Ken Ishii and DJ Krush before him, Yokota has a big following in Europe, though the hypnotic non-stop funky grooves pulsating through "zero" show he's now quite capable of taking on the world as well.
All the tracks on "zero"-released here this week, and worldwide next month-including the opener "Go Ahead," with its contagious "move your body" vocal refrains, and the equally catchy "Come On My World," reveal a mature and positive mind-set at play behind the decks. But having turned 40 this year, Yokota is not wasting any time either. In the last two years, he has released a steady flow of albums-including "image," "sakura," and his celebrated "1999"-but judging from U.S. and British critics' praises, his speedy delivery comes with quality guaranteed.
However, Yokota seemed in no great hurry himself when he dropped by the Sublime label office last week for a chat. As he said, he's been "comfortably making a living" off his music for the past five years-while also being able to express himself in more experimentally challenging ways through his own label, Skintone, which he launched two years ago.
Nonetheless, his enviable luxuries today are without doubt the hard-earned fruits of a decade's labors. "I used to be a free-lance graphic designer in Tokyo, but when the economic bubble burst, I found my job offers were dwindling as well," says Yokota in his simple, straightforward fashion. "Since I had more time to myself, I began to work on programmed music and beats."
What is all the more impressive is how, a year later, Yokota began handing out DAT tapes of his songs to foreign DJs passing through Tokyo. Masterful touch
In 1993, this eventually landed him a contract with the German techno label Harthouse, and an invitation to DJ at Berlin's million strong Love Parade techno festival-all without moving a single step out of Japan.
It goes without saying that Yokota's career has benefited greatly from his masterful touch on the turntables, and indeed his DJ skills have been kept well honed-not just at home, but across Europe too. Nowadays, apart from studio work, his diary is dotted with party DJ dates, and he is frequently invited overseas to tour along with some of techno' s finest, including Jeff Mills, Luke Slater and Kraftwerk.
"I don't buy too many records these days, maybe 20 singles a month," he said. "I'm not really listening for a good song or a bad song. I just buy what I can use on the dancefloor as a DJ, so this process of choosing records has become almost a creative process in itself."
Techno music has long been in the creator's blood, as he cites '80s technopop bands like Joy Division and New Order as his early musical influences. However, the first record he bought may, perhaps, reveal the roots of his more recent leanings toward warmer, earthbound sounds.
"The first record I bought was by the Carpenters when I was 10 years old," he recalled, adding, "I remember hitting pots and pans with chopsticks like drums when I was a kid."
Nowadays, those primitive tools have long since been replaced by digital ones like the Akai S5000 sampler, and his current latest fancy, the Pro Tools software for Macintosh.
Even his previous job as a graphic designer has been reaping its own rewards in Yokota's musical world of late. "For the last two to three years my lifestyle in music has started to settle down, so I'm trying to get back into some graphic design," he said with obvious enthusiasm. Both the cover of his latest album and the inner sleeves feature his own (non-digital) photographic artwork. Next month is the maestro's first gallery opening, "Susumu Yokota Art Works," in Tokyo's Aoyama. Given Yokota's get-up-and-go and zeal for creativity, this latest artistic venture could likely be the start of yet another successful career.
Susumu Yokota will tour Japan alongside Max Brennan and Fretless AZM on Sublime's "ZERO" tour. They will play in Hiroshima at 1 O p.m. June 30 at Chinatown (082-247-5270). They then move to Osaka for a show at 9 p.m. July 1 at Karma (06-6344-6181), a five-minute walk from JR Kitashinchi Station. The next show then is in Sapporo at 9 p.m. July 7 at Precious Hall
(011-513-2221), before the tour returns to Tokyo for a final show at Aoyama Cay (03-3498-5790), near Omotesando subway station.
"Susumu Yokota Art Works" runs from July 7 to 16 at Aoyama Free Space 3. For more information contact Sublime at 03-5468-5666.s
BY KEN KAWASHIMA
JUNE 2000
It so turns out that Susumu Yokota is a very interesting man. Since his musical debut, the 1992 Harthouse 12” Frankfurt – Tokyo Connection, Yokota has released some 13 albums and 15 12”s. working under various names, including Ringo, Prism and 246, and for various labels, including Sublime, Reel Musiq and his own Skintone Label he has found the time to exhibit his visual artwork in Tokyo. Most of the music is a kind of positive disco techno, but his Skintone catalogue has recently been licensed by London’s Leaf, bringing the ambient side of Yokota to the fore.
The first of the Skintone/Leaf releases is Images, 1983-1998, a collection of short miniatures, composed in two different time periods. Tracks 1-5 were recorded with guitar and organ between 1983-4 and tracks 6-12 were composed through 97-98, being inspired by the earlier material. This strange and beautiful record is like a musical scrapbook or photo album, which is appropriate, because for Yokota, there is a very close connection between music, memory and his extremely active visual imagination: “When I was three, I felt it was a miracle to listen to my voice recorded on the tape recorder. When I was eight, I saw visually the music of Saint-Saens the French 19ths century composer, poet and dramatist. Ten years ago, sound became visual. The rhythm of house was jumping with the shape of shrimps.”
The sleeve notes to Images gives an insight into the mysterious process at the heart of Yokota’s music making: “Encountering Acid House made me visualise music – I could clearly see the sounds sparkling… this experience led me to create electronic music. From that time after, my life became techno.” It would see that for Yokota, sound is a connector and conductor – it reforms the scattered particles of his memory just for an instant, and through this process, he creates music.
The second Skintone/Leaf release, Magic Thread, is altogether different. The album is a dark, moody collage of industrial urban atmospheres. Strange, lilted rhythms are carefully woven together from mechanical sounds, metallic clicks and scrapes and the occasional breakbeat sample. Other tracks use the static crackle and buzz of electricity, making the record sound as if it is plugged directly into the national grid. Here we have Yokota as alchemist – using this dark and mysterious collection of sound as his base material, he creates something that is strange, intense, and very beautiful.
With his third and most recent Skintone release, Sakura, Yokota moves into yet another plane. This time, the artwork is calm, plain white, overlaid with a finely coloured painting of birds and flowers.
“The visual work of the CD jacket reflects the concept of each album,” he says, “A painting of birds reflects what my heart and emotions feel for nature.” Like the art, the sound of the album is bright, positive and very open. If Magic Thread depicts an urban landscape and industry, Sakura echoes open countryside and sunlight. The mystical theme, that runs through Sakura is reflectd in the titles to the tracks: Shinsen (God’s Spring), Hagoromo (A Robe of Feathers), or Azukiro No Kaori (A Perfume The Colour of Red Beans). The record is bursting with ideas: from the opening track Saku (bloom), a simple collage of gentle guitar, string sample, and sparkly little electronic sounds, to Naminate (wave), a weave work of jazz drum break, repeated piano chords, and marimba (kind of Steve Reich meets Dave Brubeck armed with a sampler). Sounds shimmer and sparkle with a magical property, a kind of brightness and sonic intensity – with truly beautiful mixing.
For Yokota, both art and music are self-creating, possessing almost magical powers. “If you pursue art or music, something like a spirit comes into existence in the work, and that music or art possess the miracle power in itself,” he explains. “I am always so happy when a picture or album is completed.”
Jonathan Hughes
Vol1, No.5
2000
Brian Sweeny
September 1999
From disco to house to trance and techno, from breakbeat and funk to acoustic/electronic experimentalism Japan's Susum Yookota has been makinq cool sounds for over 16 years. Yet he's only now being noticed in the West. Jonas Stone praises one of the world's most versatile talents. Photos: Brian Sweeny
Susumu Yokota could well be the most versatile artist yet to emerge from Japan's Far-Eastern shores. For starters he's had more record labels than Dean Saunders has football clubs and his dynamic range of releases range from Germanic techno trance for Sven Vath's Harthouse as Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection to Prism's Detroit-inspired staccato-funk for Japan's Sublime. Then of course we musn't forget Ringo's floor-filling electronics on Sublime's sister label Reel Musiq, Yokota's breakbeat experimentalism for Harthouse UK, Stevia's twiddlings for NS-Com and his more recent interest in disco-fuelled house under his own full name. Yet none of the above compare to the dexterous texture and beauty incarnate that is his own Skintone label, for which he has made soft and warm reflections of Japanese and electronic/acoustic guitar music since 1983. Cunningly picked up by the UK's ever daring Leaf label, 'Image 1983 - 1998' provides further insight into the mind-frame of an artist who first visualised acid house as "shrimps jumping up and down!" Yes mate.
"I can express myself more freely on Skintone as it is totally my own label," explains Yokota. "I can do whatever I feel like. With Sublime, for example, there is a label colour so I would be making something within that identity. It's not like I consider myself as an artist or a producer but the name changes are due to me releasing material on different labels and my continual experimentation with the sort of direction that I want to head in."
Indeed, Skintone appears to be more a personal expression of Yokota himself. Mild-mannered and genteel, his softly spoken words carry the serene air of someone content with their lot.
Somehow the sound of Skintone defines Yokota perfectly, as if years of soul searching have finally been laid to rest. "I have more of an idea about what I want to do musically so I feel more comfortable," he offers in humble, translated tones.
A few hours later Yokota delivers a thunderous DJ display of discofied house as he opens the show for Tokyo's Future Music Festival. Behind black-rimmed spectacles and neatly pressed apparel he nonchalantly flicks between records whilst 2,000 Japanese dubbers peel themselves from the walls. A far cry from his odd and experimental Skintone introspection, Yokota packs in plenty of his own house-inspired material that recently surfaced on this year's aptly titled '1999' long-player for Japan's Sublime stable.
Fittingly it sits between last year's '1998' and next year's imminent '2000'. "I choose to title my recent albums by the year they are released because we are coming towards the end of the century and I wanted to see or show how I evolved at this time," states Yokota. "I always liked new wave and alternative music, which for me had an end of the century feeling to it. So as we are nearly there I wanted to keep that thought inside me and develop it."
With Japan spearheading the charge into the next millennium via its relentless pursuit of making technology smaller, quicker and ridiculously efficient, one wonders if their own collectively cultured exploits can keep up with the capital's breakneck pace?
"There are a lot of new independent labels in Japan,' observes Yokota. "A lot of them are not yet known outside Japan but there are a lot of people doing something very new and unique." And if Yokota's own catalogue of creativity is anything to go by, then '2000' should be full of Far-Eastern promise.
Jonas Stone
September 1999
Tetsuro Sato
Classical music meets club vibes in live remix
Sunday sees a meeting of minds when some of Tokyo's club music artists perform together with those of a different musical background – a young classical orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic. "Classic Club Remix," to be held at the Triphony Hall in Sumida Ward, aims to bring together two fields of music often seen to hold little in common. Leading techno artist Susumu Yokota and American Chris Case, a 30-odd-year resident of Japan, will be remixing classical pieces to be played live by the orchestra. The word "remix" may be a little misleading here. It is not the usual kind of remixing, which utilizes sampling and other recording techniques.
Rather, it will be a live reworking of a piece of music for the purpose of performance. This will involve the artists taking a piece of classical music, choosing a part (possibly a phrase or section) to develop and then making a demo tape of the reworked piece. Then a new score will be written which, together with the demo tape for reference, will be handed over to the conductor to be played by the orchestra. A complicated process, you may think, and to what purpose? For Yokota it is a good opportunity to introduce classical music to those more accustomed to jumping up and down at a club instead of clapping politely at a concert hall.
"I mainly listened to club music and new wave for a long time, until the past few years when I started listening to more jazz and classical, and found that I really enjoyed it," Yokota says. "Young people often have the impression that classical music is serious and dry, but really it is freer than techno which is a lot more rigid in structure. Freer in the sense that the composer and especially the conductor are able to develop, emphasize and improvise in a manner that is difficult for most techno musicians."
"We have chosen pieces that are closer to the modern extreme of classical music," Case says. "I am remixing a piece from Wagner's 'Ring' cycle, and Yokota is remixing Erik Sa tie's 'Gymnopedies.' Satie's 'furniture music' was... moving away from 'classical' and was a precursor of what is called ambient today." Case adds that he is more interested in the concept. "I believe that nothing is essentially 'contradictory' except in people's conceptions of them, in which case they are purely intellectual contradictions," he says.
Having mixed classical bits into DJing sessions in Japan and Bali, Case is no stranger to the concept. At its worst it is "a pastiche," he says; at its best it moves toward an integration of supposedly incompatible forms. This integration involves, in one section of Yokota's piece, the layering of break beats (sampled rhythms from old soul, jazz or hip-hop records) over just three notes from Satie's "Gymnopedies." "I hope it will have more of a groove than a lot of 'techno' music,"
He says. "It should have more of an acid jazz feel to it- club music in its wider sense." Yokota's work will likely be the more direct and easy to grasp· of the two, and Case's more difficult. Or perhaps not.
“What I am doing with Wagner's 'Ring' is exploring the repetition of just one leitmotif, and building a celestial flow of shifting harmonies," Case says. "In this sense it is already close to ambient in that there is less importance on form and more focus on psychic communication. I think music should be judged primarily by its effect on the psyche of the listener and only secondarily as an art form."
Conducting both works will be Yoko Matsuo, one of only a few women conductors in Japan, but also one of the most famous. "Well, I had never really listened to much club music as such before this project, so I have had to input new sounds, which has opened me up somewhat," she says. "Before I heard the demo tapes I expected the techno elements might throw the structure of the classical pieces off balance, but actually they seem to work really well together.''
In addition to his reworking of Wagner, Case will also do an ambient music set. He, with kota and the orchestra will be complemented by Japanese DJ and musician Hanno. rumor has it that Hanno's will lean toward the noisy industrial side of ambient music, but nobody seems to know for sure. Whether this ambuguity is simple evasive or part of the mood of revised performance is for you to find out.
Jeff Hammond
SITTING in a plush. almost airport-lounge style coffee shop laced by seven Japanese techno producers who don't really speak English. Talking through our interpreter Mick, counterman at Cisco Records, Tokyo's only techno store. In Shibuya, one of Tokyo's main neon-lit shopping centres. The producers sit politely, waiting for their turn, chatting quietly amongst themselves, although some have never met before. Shoppers wonder through the rain, coffee cups clatter almost inaudibly, a peaceful sense of order, escape from the electric city chaos outside, prevails.
Earlier we have walked for half an hour through the placid Sunday afternoon rain to reach a temple, where we took photos. Sakuma, Cisco's manager, who has arranged this gathering of Tokyo's techno cognoscenti, had thoughtfully provided umbrellas. En route, Mick whispered that he thought it strange no one in our party had attempted to talk to us. As this diverse band of producers posed in the twilight in the temple courtyard, the guard came to shoo us away - the temple was about too close. Being Japanese, I suppose, and coming from a much more regimented society, their instinct was to leave on command and they turned as one to go. Being English, I suppose, ours was to cajole, argue, push the time limit as long as possible, and we persuaded them to stay. Cultural differences, language barriers, confusion and politeness; that's how etiquette varies in different time zones. Techno, having no respect for time or language or laws, flies over those differences. And it's techno we're here to talk about. I'm sitting in front of a bunch of guys dressed so nondescriptly, so normally, that to me they look like they could be anything, do anything, work in a shoe shop or pilot an aeroplane - anything but produce weird, wonderful, frightening, touchingly romantic, at times plain insane techno records. But what do I know? I'm not just in another country, Japan is so strange that I feel like I'm on another planet.
And as one by one the producers slide into the seat between me and Mick, as we struggle through the language gap and instead talk about Detroit and Roland and the international language of music, then those self-same cultural differences slip away and personalities,
stories, lives and a love of the endless electronic groove take their place.
"Since Japanese techno doesn't have a drug scene, it's different.”
JAPANESE techno is different, not always radically different, just subtly, neatly, warily different. It's also increasingly excellent. Be it the tiny shards of discordant melody that Ken Ishii, Japan's Aphex Twin, drops all over R&S releases like 'Garden On The Palm', or the delicate yet frantic trance of Dream Punk's 'The Joker' on the Torema label, or the lush, sentimental melodies of Mind Design's 'View From The Edge' CD on Transonic, Japanese techno is becoming a new, polite, yet strident voice in iniernational techno.
It's also a very thoughtful music and they love slogans and concepts. "Mad sound with energy from the chaos," it says on every Torema release. "Future Electronic Music," announce the Subvoice labels. "From the bedroom to the whole universe," declare the sleeves from the Frogman label, whose owm compilation is carries the same name. And resourceful, it is impossible to press vinyl in Japan so Japanese labels press-up their records in the UK, then re-import them. "I think the sound itself is different," says Keiko Suzuki, a London-based journalist working for Japan's Ele-King and Remix magazines. "Old traditional Japanese music sounds very sentimental. So they use that. And they use video game sounds. So there's two streams. They're very Westernised."
"We shouldn't just import trends and DJs from abroad with 'strong Japanese yen'."
Sakuma's Subvoice label likewise now has a UK outlet through Happy Daze distribution. Last Summer they put out their first release, the deranged yet perfectionist chaos of From Time To Time's 'From Time To Time’. There’s the Sublime, Frogman, Syzygy and Transonic labels, plus Rising High's Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection and R&S/Apollo's Meditation YS. There's a small yet
potentially powerful scene here.
'
When I was young, I listened to punk rock," recalls the genial Sakuma, who records and performs live as Future Electronic Music. "I liked all electronic music. I like music that has energy. In house, I felt more energy than in any other kind. Now I'm most interested in techno because techno is changing all the time, changing its form." And there’s a hardcore Japanese techno following: the morning Sakuma first opened Cisco's techno shop last October, 100 customers were stood outside. Even today, on a Sunday afternoon the shop is lull of techno heads, browsing through the shelves of pure, high quality, international techno. Visiting artists have covered the walls with their autographs in silver and gold magic marker: Alter Ego, Lenny Dee, Lazonby, Dave Clarke, Jeff Mills, Mad Mike, Resistance D, it's a roll call of cred. Behind the counter are two decks and a Pioneer CD mixer, a girl at a computer and a telephone.
At 4am that morning, in a small, white, basement club ....
(Partial Feature, Incomplete text)
Susumu shows his roots
SUSUMU YOKOTA is one. of Japan’s biggest house/techno djs and, after Ken Ishii, was the first Japanese techno producer to have his music released in Europe. Over the years he has laboured under a number of names, (246, Ringo, Prism and Stevia) and for numerous labels, (Sublime, Reel Musiq and Harthouse). He is perhaps best known for his 1992 Frankfurt/Tokyo Connection release on Sven Vath's Harthouse label. In recent years however his music has been turning in old directions, "Acid house was really fresh and shocking for me and it was the thing that changed my consciousness and my life.
After Acid House in the late 80's many exciting sounds were coming up, but from around 97 the scene became boring and I couldn't find any freshness in what was there, therefore, I felt freshness in the music of the past, which are my roots."
We speak through a loop of e-mails and Facimiles, translated back and forth. The music he speaks of belongs to a more. innocent/ambient side of Susumu.
In the, early eighties Yokota was creating intricate little compositions that seemed to live and breath through a weaving instrumental mix. The release of Image 1983-1998 through his own Skintone label and licenced for the UK by the Leaf Label saw him revisit this sound placing pieces recorded then, side by side with fresh compositions created similar perspective. He has since followed with two successive albums, Magic Thread and Sakura. These have seen his sound progress in sophistication and Subtlety, the melody growing more subliminal more therapeutically ambient.
“My music has developed with era. Both I and music change. I am still in a process where I have to handle techniques and gear. I cannot say anything specific but I want to express myself in original ways. Music is one of the ways I express myself. Music is indispensable for me.”
In his time Yokota has explored many side of the musical spectrum, “I want to touch and use genres which I am interested in and feel something in.
Working on different style you are interested in means they can influence each other in some way and freshness is born. At one time I made drum and bass which would influence me when creating house. Also, when I work on tracks with no beat I start to want to make dance music.”
“I can identify myself more because I am enriched musically. I think it is best if I can be myself in any genre.”
For someone who has taken the time to review his musical career to date I wondered how he view his creation,
“They are incomplete, but I have my own world which nobody possesses. I have plenty of energy which will create and release my work.”
With the Leaf Label releasing his ambient works within the UK Susumu Yokota is enjoying huge critical acclaim. To finish I asked him what ambitions he had remaining. His answer is simple, ‘Making Movies.”
Andrew Morrison
October 2000
In the grand scheme of things, Japan's Susumu Yokota isn't just some new kid on the block, although his current level of popularity would lead you to believe he's electronic music's 'new young gun'. Far from it. Yokota's got all the groundwork behind him, still settling after over a decade In the trade. He's been quietly cutting albums - 22 of them
now - for labels like Sublime, and his own Skintone imprint, with stand-outs like '1998' and 'Sakura'. Yet It's been only in the past twelve months that Yokota has truly crossed over to a broader spectrum of acclaim. Despite the fact that he's cut nearly two dozen longplayers in his time, he only recently completed his first DJmix CD. In the past twelve months It's been Yokota's association with English record label and distributor Leaf that's lifted his profile so significantly, and opened a few more ears to the best-kept secret coming out of Japan. That label, which has released to Europe and elsewhere beyond Japan, Yokota's wonderful 'Image 1983-1998', 'Magic Thread', Last years acclaimed 'Sakura', and his exquisite new album 'Grinning Cat', seems a more than appropriate home for the sounds and the aesthetic of Susumu Yokota, what with labelmates like 310, Manitoba and Beige sitting alongside those releases in the racks. But aside from his more recent Leaf affiliations, there is certainly plenty of history -and music- to ponder when you consider Susumu Yokota.
"What would you say Is 'Susumu Yokota music', and how does this differ from other artists?"
"I have made ambient, dance music and various other styles of music, yet it's not about differences of technique; I make music with myself."
"You've worked with Japanese label Sublime in the past, but these days you're better known for your output through Leaf. What Is your relationship with them?,
"Skintone is my own Label, and I release works in Japan. Leaf have Licensed those works, so I'm in surroundings in which I can create freely."
"Your album '1998' was an Inspired fusion of beats, dub, jazz and funk. What are your feelings about that album now, some three years later, given the change in style you've implemented since?"
"I feel the sense and passion of the time. If I am requested to make the same album again, it's impossible."
"To my ears your style has become more minimal and assured In Its experimental nature since '1998'. How have you developed your sound, and what different equipment have you introduced over the years?"
"The things I am interested in and equipment have always changed. I get so bored if I've
not changed, so I always treasure my surroundings and try to have a fresh one."
"What is your opinion on sampling In modern music?"
"I take freely, no matter what kind of music - pop, classical, ethnic ... whatever may widen my sound."
"There are a lot of Japanese artists making some great music - Fantastic Plastic Machine, Co-fusion, Ken lshll, Fumlya Tanaka, Yamaoka, Silent Poets, DJ Shufflemaster, Takkyu lshlno and Magnet Toy are names I know of. What other Japanese artists do you think we should check out?"
"Yukihiro Fukutomi, Nobukazu Takemura, and Kyoto Jazz Massive."
"What Is It about Japanese culture that has Influenced so many Interesting electronic/experimental music producers, dating right back to the Yellow Magic Orchestra?"
"I don't know."
"Tell us 5 things we may not know about Susumu Yokota."
"1. I used to work as graphic designer. 2. I do the design for every one of my albums which I released through Leaf. 3. Before that, I released through PsyHarmonics in Australia. 4. I didn't receive my guaranteed fee. 5. I have released 22 albums."
"What Is your favorite food and alcoholic drink?"
"I like everything, but I especially Like noodles. And I like beer and sake."
"What are your plans for the rest of the year?"
"I will release my album 'Will', in the Fall through Skintone and Leaf, also I plan to release another album through Sublime later this year."
Numerous titles by Susumu Yokota, including his completely beautiful new album 'Grinning Cat', are available via Skintone(Japan), and Leaf/lnertla(Australla). Thus far, young Mark Rayner(ln-press) has called 'Grinning Cat' " .. an intimate sleepy-eyed electronic opus", and to us it is "simply as vivid as the heart of winter, and as inspiring as the lucid memories of childhood dreams and reflections. True and wonderful, 'Grinning cat' Is as perfect as ambience may come".
Andrez Bergen
2001
MULTIFORM JAPANESE TECH
You could never accuse Susumu Yokota of slacking off - one of the first Asian dance producers to gain attention in Europe and the UK via his Frankfurt/Tokyo tech-trance project for Sven Vath's Harthouse label during the early 90s, it seems like Yokota has hardly paused for a breather along the way. Dropping Motor Citystyle funk as Prism, weird breaks gear on Harthouse UK as well as his dancefloor friendly Ringo pseudonym on Reel Musiq, the Japanese producer has more recently put out disco house and ambient with three albums - 'Image 1983-1998', 'Magic Thread' and the forthcoming 'Sakura' work under his own name. Although the long players were originally released on his own Skintone stamp in Japan, they've been put out on Leaf in the UK, and make for Yokota's most captivating work to date.
Consisting of gentle, organic ambience, all three works are an alluring, introspective antidote to the frenetic pace of modern life. Given Yokota's surroundings - the ultra futurist surroundings of Tokyo - the soothing tones of the Skintone/Leaf album trilogy are all the more pertinent. "Each album has expressed one of my worlds," Yokota answers,
adding that "all I had to do was make the music to go with it.
'Sakura' means 'cherry blossoms' in Japanese, and all the track titles on 'Sakura' have a certain image, an atmosphere, I wouldn't say I'm a calm person, more of a well balanced person." Unsurprisingly, Yokota talks eagerly about working on soundtracks - "I find the synergy between a movie's plot and the accompanying sound very interesting" - and intends to mix sounds rather than beats on his first ever mix CD, scheduled for release on Leaf.
"I'm using tracks from various Leaf artists," he explains. "The label has been built up like a soundtrack anyway, so I won't be mixing bpms, which makes it easier for me to create a new world, It's different from my house DJing and production but both sides are part of my wor1d."
As always, Yokota's approach to his work is different, distinctive, like the innovations of his peers and fellow countrymen Yoshinori Sunahara and Ken Ishii. "We all make electronic music, but we're all different from one another," Yokota comments.
"At the same time, we all make music which is special, different from the norm, music which isn't 'straight'. Even though I don't speak English, I'm able to communicate with you because music transcends cultural frontiers and language barriers."
Richard Brophy
September 2000