Bleep

From a young age, Susumu Yokota’s influences were global. His output reached just as far, with variety and a wide range of sounds populating his seemingly endless, highly celebrated discography, making him one of the most influential artists to come from Japan’s techno and ambient scenes. That legacy was kickstarted by the seminal Acid Mt. Fuji in 1994, leading to the founding of his own Skintone label which Lo Recordings collects releases from in a remarkable seven album boxset spanning from 1998 to 2003 (with a second volume of equally mammoth size to come).

For an artist with such a huge legacy, this birds eye view of his work is not only a fitting tribute but a necessary refresh for albums that have been decades out of print. Volume 1 of Skintone Edition tracks Yokota’s relationship with The Leaf Label, starting with the woozy tape manipulations of Magic Thread and Image 1983-1998, where magnified minuscule sounds and idyllic guitar effects speak to his mastery of soundscaping. Yokota’s music is always twitching and teeming with tiny details, featuring imaginative departures from the rules of dance music while giving a pulse to ambience, conjuring mystical worlds in the delicateness of his sound.

Sakura is among Yokota’s most spoken of albums, gradually expanding layers in blissful atmospheres where mesmerising harp loops converge over smooth string drones, and samples from Western classical and popular music are ingeniously folded in. As the century turned, Yokota took the philosophy of Sakura even further into experimental realms on 2001’s Grinning Cat, more active, daring, and structurally free, in tandem with the intensely feelgood and eclectic deep house grooves of Will. His later albums in this era, The Boy And The Tree and Laputa, took sharp turns into otherworldly collage, with instruments lurching across cultural divides to create cinematic, abstracted takes on his already leftfield and relentlessly experimental sound.

A decade on from his passing, Susumu Yokota receives one of the widest and most lovingly prepared reflections on his music with Skintone Edition.