Susumu Yokota - Skintone Edition Volume 1
Some very significant news for Susumu Yokota fans.
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes, it takes completely different forms.
In 2015, the Japanese composer, producer, and DJ Susumu Yokota passed from this world to the next. When he died on March 27, 2015, at the age of fifty-four, Yokota left behind an impressive legacy of albums, EPs, singles, and remixes released under his birth name and eleven aliases: 246, Anima Mundi, Ebi, Frankfurt-Tokyo-Connection, Prism, Ringo, Stevia, Tenshin, Tokyo Cult House, Y, and Yin & Yang. Beginning with acid house in the early 1990s, Yokota spent the next twenty years exploring the possibilities of trance, deep house, Detroit-influenced techno, breakbeat, drum & bass, ambient, and beyond. In the process, he cultivated an oeuvre that runs as wide and deep as central Tokyo’s storied Sumida River.
Ten years after his untimely passing, John Tye’s Lo Recordings has just unveiled the first stage in a major archival project designed to secure Yokota-san’s influential legacy, Susumu Yokota - Skintone Edition Volume 1. Here's the CliffsNotes: "Skintone Edition Volume 1" is a 7-album box set that collects half of the fourteen ambient/ambient-slanted albums Yokota released through his Skintone label between 1998 and 2012. As one of the most internationally influential figures to emerge from the Japanese musical canon during the '90s and 2000s, his is a name that needs no introduction over here.
In terms of box content, we're talking "Magic Thread", "Image 1983-1998", "Sakura", "Grinning Cat", "Will", "The Boy and the Tree" and "Laputa". Fittingly, Skintone Edition Volume 1" will be made available in vinyl, CD and digital formats, with a second box set ", Susumu Yokota - Skintone Edition Volume 2", due to follow in 2026. Fittingly, the first volume also arrives during Lo Recordings’ thirtieth year of business.
Full disclosure: I've got some personal skin in this project. In 2023, Lo Recordings approached me to write a new set of liner notes for the repress of Yokota-san's "Sakura" album that appears in this collection. That request came off the back of a major feature story I wrote about the life and times of Yokota-san for Wax Poetics with the great Ken Hidaka. You can read "After The Cherry Blossoms Fall" over here.
In the wake of that article, Hidaka-san helped me create an audio tribute to Yokota-san for Dublab, which you can listen to here. In recent years, I've also written about Yokota-san's "Baroque" album for Resident Advisor and paid tribute to his peers at Sublime Records for DJ Mag.
Here's a quote from DJ Miku that I think sums up a lot about why Yokota-san's music still resonates so strongly in this mortal coil. “Songwriting was like a diary for him. You would not rewrite your diary. I think he was more interested in the track’s momentum than in perfecting it. It was important for him to create music from what he felt in the moment. That’s why I think Yokota’s work is very emotional. He was never one to sacrifice the soul of a track to make it sound better. In other words, there is no lie in his works.”
It's also worth noting that over the next fourteen months, Lo Recordings will reissue all 14 Skintone albums as standalone releases in LP, CD, and digital formats. So, if going the whole hog isn't your thing, you'll be able to pick up the crucial cuts you need piece by piece. Unsurprisingly, all music has been fully remastered.
Finally, here's some more specifics on the "Skintone Edition Volume 1" release package.
13 Disc Vinyl Box Set:
- Custom Limited Edition Outer Box: Block-printed, foiled silver linen, wrapped with a deep night sky finish.
- 13 Vinyl Discs (6 double LP albums, 1 single LP album)
- Coloured vinyl (7 colours)
- Printed inner sleeve for each disc, featuring custom fonts, spot gloss and colour matched Pantone
- Extensive Sleeve notes for each album
- 4 page insert + 4 panel poster
7 Disc CD box set:
- Custom Limited Edition CD box: Wrapped in uncoated black paper finished with a High Gloss Black on Black block foil print
- 7 x CD album. Each in a 6 Panel DigiSleeve printed and formed on 300 gsm uncoated board
- Included printed sleeve notes
Skintone Edition Volume 1 is due for release through Lo Recordings on August 1 2025, in vinyl, CD and digital formats (Pre-order here).
JESS RIBEIRO, MIX TAPE
In other news, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote the sales notes for the Naarm-based Australian singer-songwriter Jess Ribeiro’s new project, Mix Tape. Pre-orders are up on Bandcamp now. Here’s an excerpt below.
Jess Ribeiro’s Mix Tape is a collection of abandoned pathways, parallel timelines, maybes and what-ifs recorded with Michael Vince Moin (Tram Cops), Jesse Williams, John Castle, James Seymour and Jeremy Toy. Over eight demos and B-sides previously left on the cutting floor, she sings in her signature cinematic style. Evoking teenage memories, smoking cigarettes in the woods after dusk, late-night sorrow, and the moment someone you’ve spent a lifetime waiting for arrives, these songs represent the end of one chapter and the promise of something new. Set against breezy guitars, rollicking drums and nostalgic synthesisers, her economical prose conjures up entire worlds within a few words, saying the most while saying the least.
REVIEWS ROUNDUP: HARMONY INDEX, TENNISCOATS, .VRIL, DENNIS HARTE
A few days ago, I arrived back from two weeks in Australia, where I was lucky enough to attend a bunch of great shows at the Sydney Opera House (Jessica Pratt, Pat Metheny, Shackleton + Azu Tiwaline), go to a warehouse party in Marrickville, and eat my weight in fancy pasta before heading to Melbourne. Over the second week, we DJed at several beautiful spots around town (Hope Street Radio, High Note, etc.) and managed to see Keanu Nelson, Richard Akingbehin & Tikiman, MC Yallah, and Tenniscoats perform. Pretty good innings for a fortnight away. While I'm recalibrating, here are some short blurbs on a few recent releases I'm vibing on.
One of the funny things about the last two weeks is that I ended up seeing Jessica Pratt play live three times in three different cities. Part of this was because our friends Matt McDermott and Diego Herrera play in his band. The other part was because of how lovely the performances were. A big part of the dynamic is Jessica's excellent bassist, Nico Leibman aka Harmony Index. As it turns out, she's also an excellent dance music songwriter, producer and engineer. Last night, she released her new EP, Winterbreaks. Opening with the Kanyko-ongaku slanted synth-ambience of 'Prelude', the EP unfolds into an exercise in bouncy, floaty breakbeat house ("All Around"), smokey downtempo/street soul ("Drifting") and lush piano garage ("In Step"). Well recommended at this end.
Another lovely part of this trip was seeing the longstanding Japanese avant-pop duo, Saya さや and Takashi Ueno 植野隆司 aka Tenniscoats play two shows: one as part of Melbourne's Rising Festival and another at a special Sunday night Omniversal Hum event held inside Hope Street Radio. If you know, you already know. If you don't, they're just the cutest two-piece in the known universe. But while they're cute, it never gets too cutesy. There's so much charisma on display here. How many acts do you know that can unplug mid-set and draw a room to complete silence? Released back in February, "Zenvu Yume" is loaded with elegant dance pop tracks, bossa-tinted downtempo numbers and an abundance of lush ambient folk.
The same night we saw Tenniscoats play for the first time, we also caught Richard Akingbehin & Tikiman performing at the same venue. At this point, Paul St. Hilaire aka Tikiman really is one of the final bosses of dub techno. Having grown up on his music and that sound, Richard does an incredible job of supporting him as a DJ. Their performance was an absolute dream. When I was decompressing afterwards, I decided to check out what Richard's been doing with his Kynant Records label. As it goes, he released a new EP from the Lisbon-based producer .VRIL titled "Crystal Cell Energy." Expect six slabs of deep, driving and hypnotic dub techno with a euphoric tone and some meaningful spoken word delivered by two critical thinkers in the world of soundsystem culture and experimental music: Edward George and Isis Semaj-Hall AKA Riddim Writer. Oh yeah, acclaimed Dutch techno artist Steve Rachmad also dons his Parallel 9 alias for a remix.
Melbourne's Efficient Space label continues to expand its Ghost Riders musical universe with a new (old) archival EP of material recorded in New York in 1973 by a then 11-year-old musical prodigy named Dennis Harte. I'm gonna speak in simple terms here. If you're a Donnie & Joe Emerson enthusiast, this EP is right up your alley. Beautifully dreamy vocals and guitars, a prematurely nostalgic sentiment and rolling rhythm sections. It's just absolute bliss. I absolutely adore the title track.
FIN.