Over the last few years the global recognition of Japanese producer Susumu Yokota has been steadily rising. While Yokota pretty much from his first releases was revered in underground electronic music circles, word of his many would say genius has now spread much wider. 

I guess that this could be down to a number of things. To begin with, in the 21st Century electronica is much more respected than it was. Back when a lot of ground-breaking stuff was being made, in the mid to late 1990s, it was considered to be the work of “faceless” techno fellows. These days a lot of it, quite rightly, has been reappraised and with its initial “raver” audience now older, more mature, sits alongside conventional modern classical. In fact, much of contemporary modern classical blurs the boundary with electronica anyway. Then there’s also the West’s fascination with all things Japanese. There’s always been a cool cache amongst aficionados for all kinds of everything made in Japan. In the world of DJing, for example, it’s always been important to have something – secret weapons – that your competition does not. So what better than to have a 12 pressed in tiny quantities 6000 miles away. 

Living in Japan, sometimes earning a bit of pocket money selling homegrown vinyl, and also watching obscurities I’ve found while digging in Tokyo get licensed, the musical excavation of the country, since around 2010, has exponentially increased. In Yokota’s case this “boom” was undoubtedly hastened by an excellent in depth article / artist biography penned for Wax Poetics by Martin Pepperell and Ken Hidaka, a close friend of Yokota’s.  

The thing with Yokota is that his releases have always been hard to find. Since he was so super prolific, on the surface, it’s not so easy to understand why. He recorded across genres – from trance, techno, acid, banging, rough, raw jacking house to ambient, and intricate, delicate, unique electronica – and assumed a variety of aliases, for a range of labels, both Japanese and European. So you’d think you’d come across his stuff all the time in second hand shops, but you do not. That’s because over here Yokota has never been a secret. Instead, celebrated as a founding father of the Japanese “techno” scene, and all of those who actually knew Yokota also consider him a mentor. Folks who have those CDs and records don’t part with them. 

Yokota passed in the spring of 2015. At 54 taken far too soon. As with any artist we’ve lost, the licensing of their catalogue becomes a complicated and emotional path. During the 2020s, however, there’s been a fairly steady stream of reissues, with a series of European imprints each focusing on a separate Yokota alias. Berlin’s Transmigration tackled Ebi, Madrid’s Glossy Mistakes, Stevia, while London label Cosmic Soup covered 246 and Amina Mundi. Then last year, Japan’s Sublime / Musicmine remastered Yokota`s seminal “Acid Mt. Fuji” – which in 1994, alongside Ken Ishi’s “Reference To Difference”, was the first japanese techno record to be released on a Japanese label. Now, Lo Recordings, who worked closely with Yokota while he was alive, with the blessing of Yokota’s family and estate, are about to reissue the entire output of his own Skintone imprint. 

Yokota started Skintone in 1998 as a place of escape. He felt pressured from the outside to churn out a conveyer belt of dance floor dynamite after dance floor dynamite. Skintone, instead, served as a sonic sketch book, a diary. Somewhere he could quietly, gently, experiment. To my mind, his most interesting music is here. His thoughts, observations and feelings locked in a complex counterpoint, in layers of the tiniest loops. A deep listen to any one of these LPs would have you hooked, but what I’m most excited about is taking them each in turn and trying to understand how his process, outlook and personal philosophy evolved. I would like to understand the man a little. 

Believe me this is an event, and it’s been a long time coming (1). I wouldn’t be surprised that if in the future folks do PhD theses on these Skintone sides. There’s literally so much to listen to, re-listen to, enjoy, and if you’re so inclined, analyse. I look at these beautiful boxsets with a mixture of fear and anticipation. Like the dusty, unopened volumes of Proust on my book shelf, I can’t wait to dive in, but worry that once I do I may never listen to anything else again. 

Susumu Yokota’s beautifully presented “Skintone Edition Volume 1” is a 7 album set. It contains “Magic Thread”, “Image 1983-1998”, “Sakura”,  “Grinning Cat”, “Will”, “The Boy and the Tree” and “Laputa”. The collection can be ordered, in a variety of formats, directly from Lo Recordings. 

NOTES

(1) I was extremely honoured to be asked to contribute sleeve notes for the “Image 1983 – 1998” reissue, and the work was signed off at the end of 2021.