Susumu Yokota - The Boy And The Tree (Leaf, 2002)

1 The Colour Of Pomegranates (5:13)
2 Live Echo (5:31)
3 Fairy Link (4:33)
4 Grass, Tree And Stone (4:39)
5 Secret Garden (6:10)
6 Rose Necklace (2:44)
7 Beans (1:20)
8 Plateau On Plateau (5:50)
9 Red Swan (4:27)
10 Thread Leads To Heaven (3:42)
11 Future Tiger (5:26)
12 Blood And Snow (5:01)

L’ami Susumu serait-il parti se régénérer dans un des jardins planétaires du Quatrième Monde avant d’avoir conçu cet album? Une hypothèse loin d’être improbable et que l’écoute répétée de "The Boy and the Tree" tend à conforter. Spécialiste du "miniaturisme" ambient, ce Japonais réussit une fois de plus à nous enchanter en signant un manifeste d’electronica pastorale et onirique. Influencé par Debussy en particulier et par la musique néo-classique en général, cet ex-maître de la "house" déploie ici de subtiles frises électroniques aux motifs "écolo-romantiques". De forme répétitives, lorgnant parfois vers les gamelans, ses compositions dénotent un goût toujours plus prononcé pour le travail sur l’échantillonage (énormément de boucles parsèment ce disque), sur la texture et sur le timbre. La synergie entre références environnementales et fonctionnalités technologique atteint ici son apogée. A la croisée de routes musicales improbables (celles de Jon Hassel et de Labradford par exemple), Yokota nous emmène dans un univers de conte ethnofuturiste où l’on rêve un jour de pouvoir se perdre!
Solenopole

Musical categorizations are tough.

Most recent musical commentary (my own included) has attempted to add more adjectives, further hyphenate and over-describe (see, preceding phrase) a genre or band. As much as I like to engage in this geeky exercise, I doubt it does justice to the music or musicians in question. Most music has some inherent, easily distinguishable characteristics that place it somewhere within a particular genre or movement, but this compartmentalization and lax categorization now verge on the ridiculous.

With Susumu Yokota’s The Boy and the Tree dribbling out of my speakers, I am having difficulty describing how the songs effect me. I thought that I would be able to come up with a succinct, genres-strung-together description of it, but realized that was a disservice. Although it’s easy to reference a particular sound to describe an artist, this action reduces the music’s inherent uniqueness. Except in the cases of true rip-off artists or hackneyed carbon copies, this pigeonholing has a detrimental outcome. Yokota has created such an interesting patchwork of sounds that he deserves some serious contemplation.

The Boy and the Tree pulses with a consistent timbre that lulled me into a state of relaxation. It was not a foam-mat, twisted-limbs, pilates-class kind of relaxation, but more of a well-rested glow. The panning, reverberating electric guitar lines and bird chirping forest sounds of the opening “The Colour of Pomegranates” struck me differently than expected. The album borrows heavily from various “nature” sounds, combining them with stringed instruments and percussion, and is always one step from delving into Nature channel stock footage or “Relaxing Sounds of Slumber.” A testament to Yokota is that, although these moods are suggested, he explores the details of their character as to not veer into focus group-tested hyperbole. Careful never to overplay his artistic hand, Yokota creates his own musical dialect, one that has been methodically filtered through various aesthetic inputs. This practice results in music that achieves its intended aims of tranquility and contemplation, but without all of the new age baggage that could accompany it.

“Thread Leads to Heaven” features a blended melody doubled, overlapped and (as per the title) threaded together. “Rose Necklace” adds an angelic vocal that speaks through an evaporating echo before descending into an incomprehensible synthesized spray. These water-based adjectives are intentional – Yokota’s continual shape-shifting evidence a real musical liquidity. Expertly manipulating sound sources and extracting their elemental qualities, Yokota creates compositions that are equally restrained and expressive.

Perhaps the single most impressive aspect about Yokota’s work is the passive manner in which it defies category. Exhibiting knowledge about the traps of recycled sound, Yokota practices careful control over his pieces. If all artists had such an acute perception of the music-making process, critic’s commentary and listener response would both benefit; until then, search out The Boy and the Tree for an intelligent approach to composition and a sustained delightful listening experience.
Dusted Review

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Susumu Yokota - Grinning Cat (Leaf, 2001)

1 I Imagine (2:34)
2 King Dragonfly (4:42)
3 Card Nation (4:00)
4 Sleepy Eye (2:44)
5 Lapis Lazuli (3:49)
6 Balloon In The Cage (1:02)
7 Cherry Blossom (5:25)
8 Love Bird (3:49)
9 Fearful Dream (4:10)
10 Tears Of A Poet (4:36)
11 So Red (3:23)
12 Flying Cat (5:52)
13 Lost Child (3:26)

La base de ce disque repose essentiellement sur le piano, oscillant entre minimalisme et acid jazz, mélodies douces et simples, comme une plume effleurant l'air...

More than anything, Yokota's 1999 made me realize that I have a lot to learn about dance music, and my living room is probably not the best classroom. But it didn't affect the strong affinity I feel for Yokota's home listening material, a connection only strengthened upon hearing Grinning Cat. Where Sakura found Yokota exploring the sonic properties of the reverberating guitar, Grinning Cat focuses heavily on piano. The acoustic keyboard treatments vary from looped lullaby fragments, fuzzy with white noise on "Sleepy Eye," to the more traditional "Tears of a Poet," which seems like incidental film music from the 40's. Some of the piano parts are definitely sampled, with the loops cut in an intentionally jarring and disorienting manner. Others featuring winding melodies stretching across several bars which are surely played by Yokota.

The thematic unity of the piano aside, this record finds Yokota moving in ten different directions at once. It's almost as if these pieces were composed as singles, such is the varied feel. "Imagine" is a minimal affair, haunting and sad, with a floral melodic pattern set against samples and looped vocals. And then "King Dragonfly" comes right back with flanged drum programming, tribal clapping music and buoyant piano flourishes. "Card Nation" could be using a sampled Chopin Nocturne as its centerpiece, but it surrounds the tight keyboard loop with deep electronic percussion and distended Popol Vuh-style choir.

Grinning Cat runs the rhythmic gamut as well. "Cherry Blossom" chugs along on a 4/4 bass thump, dripping almost unbearably poignant shards of stained piano tone on top. "Love Bird" uses only handclaps and a shaker to set the tempo for the simplest melody on the record, Windham Hill as imagined by a computer. "So Red" takes a stab at laptop jazz, with tightly programmed snare rolls and a double bass ostinato.

The beautiful thing about this many-headed beast of a record is the possibilities for future directions. Yokota has a deep well of inspiration to draw from, and is extremely comfortable with a staggering array of styles. I may never begin to know and understand exactly where he's coming from, but I'm content to explore this patch for now. We'll see where I can go from here.

- Mark Richard-San, Pitchforkmedia

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Susumu Yokota - Love or Die (Skintone, 2007)

1 For The Other Self Who Is Far Away That I Can Not Reach (4:26)
2 A Slowly Fainting Memory Of Love And Respect, And Hatred (5:30)
3 The Loneliness Of Anarchic Beauty Archieved By My Ego (3:45)
4 A Heart-Warming And Beautiful Flower Will Eventually Wither Away And Become Dirt (4:43)
5 The Sin Of Almighty God, Respected And Believed By The Masses (4:42)
6 That Persons Hearsay Protects My Free Spirit (4:55)
7 The Things That I Need To Do For Just One's Love (5:06)
8 The Scream Of A Sage Who Lost Freedom And Love Taken For Granted Before (5:02)
9 A Song Produced While Floating Alone On Christmas Day (5:14)
10 The Now Forgotten Gods Of Rocky Mountain Residing In The Back Of The North Wood (4:02)
11 The Sacred Ceremony Concieved By Chance From An Evil Lie (5:01)
12 The Destiny For The Little Bird Trapped Inside A Small Cage For Life (4:39)

Le japonais Susumu Yokota auteur des deux albums majeurs, Magic Tread (1998) et Sakura (1999) sortis sur le prestigieux The Leaf Label, nous propose une nouvelle expérience à travers Love or Die, plongée hypnotique sous des cascades de piano, de polyrythmies ciselées et de mélodies en apesanteur.

Artiste inclassable, Susumu Yokota compose une musique aux confluents du classique et de l’electronica, où rêve et poésie semblent avoir une place prédominante, enrobée d’une touché de mélancolie enfantine, de par l’utilisation d’une instrumentation aux sonorités tout en douceur à rapprocher de comptines issues d’une 5è Dimension onirique.

Mélangeant acoustique et électronique comme à son habitude, Love or Die nous raconte des histoires dont les titres sont à eux seuls de véritables mises en abime, introduction à son engagement dans sa quête d’atteindre les cimes de l’ultime. Il y a une certaine forme de mysticisme à travers Love or Die, tiraillement entre les deux extrêmes de l’existence, traduit par son mélange des genres, superposés à la manière de collage stylistiques ayant en relation le même désir de donner à entendre une musique qui cherche avant tout à s’inscrire dans le temps, laissant disque après disque son empreinte sur les années à venir.

Roland Torres pour 90bpm

Love Or Die might be categorised as one of Susuma Yakota's ambient albums, but that's perhaps too strict a categorisation for a record so balanced as this. For all the wealth of textured, synthetic atmosphere, you'll still find a backbone of electronic rhythms running through these recordings, starting with the digital waltz 'For The Other Self Who Is Far Away That I Cannot Reach'. At first you might be struck by how artificial all this sounds: the synth piano and strings, bathed in reverb, take some getting used to but as you work your way through the record this sort of language becomes all the more endearing - heck, using these sorts of MIDI-style instruments is something that could practically be termed as vintage nowadays, so it's certainly not without its charms. In compositional terms, tracks like 'That Person's Hearsay Protects My Free Spirit' have a kind of spongy lightness to them and an airy melodic presence, while something like 'A Song Produced While Floating Alone On Christmas Day' has an Orb-like warm 4/4 ambience. Elsewhere you'll hear the sort of programmed beats - and even Aphex-style breakbeats - that recall a classic early nineties electronic language, After the initial shock of just how 'keyboardy' the album is, Love Or Die's beauty and elegance soon becomes apparent, and you'll be happy to file this next to the likes of Grinning Cat and Sakura.
Boomkat

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