Today's throwback is to Susumu Yokota, a prolific artist who carved out a niche for himself within the realms of ambient, downtempo, house, techno and (in one particularly memorable case) crossover classical, before passing all too young in 2015, aged 54. He leaves a vast discography with multiple keynote releases and a near-guaranteed level of appeal for anyone with even vague interest in electronic music, perhaps the greatest testament to which is his ambient-downtempo calling card
Grinning Cat. On paper, this album isn't necessarily his most eye-catching: it has neither the creative breadth of the Eno-adjacent miniatures of his ambient centrepiece
Sakura nor the tactile pulse of his deep house cocktail-stirrer
Sound of Sky, yet for my money it is somehow more approachable than either. This album's atmosphere is effortlessly approachable and makes itself felt from the opening notes — like nothing else I've heard, it evokes the impact of cool night air and streetlight as they strike you on the doorstep of a Japanese hot spring resort, skin fresh, mind soothed, the warmth of your body wonderfully heavy, their twin intensities blunted into the soft promise of an evening to come. Yokota conjures these associations with such eerie precision that I have little doubt the album will speak similarly to any audience who have felt the world from the other side of a post-cleanse stupor, or what have you.
Musically, this effect benefits from a straightforward approach: Yokota takes mesmeric samples (chiefly piano, often chimes and vibes, occasionally quivering strings), drapes them over murky ambient backdrops and supports them with simple beats whenever this deepens the reverie (the appropriately-titled "Flying Cat" is as close as we come to a 'busy' track; the pendulous house of album highlight "Cherry Blossom" is a fairer indication of what's on the menu). Each track is confined to the most simple developments, and incorporates the occasional flourish to deepen, rather than punctuate, the surrounding reverie — at such points, one hears flirtations with the mystical, as on the playful sample manipulation in "King Dragonfly", the otherworldly shimmer of "Lapis Lazuli", and the oneiric use of glissando on "Sleepy Eyes" (all of which be explored more ambitiously on 2005's
Symbol). However, the space here is never entirely otherworldly: the haptic touch of the percussion does great work keeping the record earthed ("King Dragonfly" once again a case-in-point), and the succinct confines of each track prove a shrewd choice, the end of each piece akin to the woozy pang of regret that emerges alongside the conscious mind from an unattainable dreamstate. This effect comes too frequently for
Grinning Cat to hold up as a work of wholesale ambient escapism, and it's honestly better off this way: this album is so clear, so immediate in its evocations of sluggish, half-forgotten bliss that its cognitive impact is not to be taken for granted. Viewed as such, this thing's transience is enchantingly true to life.
