Volume

Inspired by a visit to Yakushima Island’s Unsuikyo Ravine—the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke and home to the Jomon Sugi, a cedar tree estimated to be as many as 7,000 years old—The Boy and the Tree is part forest bathing, part plunderphonic immersion in Yokota’s record collection. Its 12 deeply psychedelic tracks fold together birdsong, chanting, raga, gamelan, flute, marimba, zither, revving motorcycles, and hand percussion. The ambient tracks take shape like drops of ink spreading through water; the rhythmic ones eschew conventional drum programming for scraps of percussion and stringed instruments from around the world, weaving them into pulsing throughlines that bring order to the gentle chaos of his flyaway sounds.

If The Boy and the Tree is Yokota at his most satisfyingly complex, 2003’s Laputa shows him at his most bewildering. The album’s 15 tracks—some just a minute or two long, and none reaching five—unfold like dreams, or landscapes blurring past the window of a speeding train. Even the best ambient music can be difficult to recall in detail once it has finished playing, but in the case of Laputa, you may have difficulty remembering how a given track even began. “Rising Sun” is a swirl of birdsong, drones, cowboy guitar, ring-modulated gurgling, and what sounds like a scrap of operatic aria lifted from a scratchy 78; “Gong Gong Gong” collages together gongs, pedal steel, and nonsensical spoken-word; “Lost Ring” superimposes ECM-grade ambience with Blade Runner-esque noir saxophone and, briefly and bizarrely, a perky splash of bluesy Hammond organ. The mood throughout is sometimes beatific, sometimes druggily disturbing. I’m frequently reminded of Philip Jeck’s slowed-down vinyl excavations; a ghostly quality hangs over every track and every sample, as though Yokota were seeking to contact spirits. The spectral “Trip Eden”—a liquid soundscape of moaning voices and shivery close harmonies—might be the most harrowing thing he ever recorded.

Seven albums can be a lot to absorb from any artist; all the more so when they entail such jarring shifts in mood—like Will—or require such focused, emotionally engaged listening, like Laputa. But Yokota benefits from the box-set treatment. To immerse yourself in his work is to be reminded of its uncommon depth, and to realize how intricately it’s all connected. The abject mourning of “Trip Eden,” the insouciance of “King Dragonfly,” the bliss of “Hagoromo”—they are all facets of Yokota’s pursuit of a totalizing picture of human emotion. In the original liner notes to Image 1983 – 1998, Yokota looked back on his years obsessed with dance music with alarm and regret. “My life became techno,” he wrote. “From morning until evening, rhythms were repetitively ticked off while sleeping, and fractal images were the only reflection I saw…. I was slipping into the memories of the future. After awakening from this mind-control, I started to seek and get inspiration from reality and everyday life; the food I eat, cats from my neighbourhood, and most of all, how I live.” These seven albums make clear how profoundly Yokota was able to translate his quotidian reality to tape, resulting in some of the most original and idiosyncratic ambient music of its era. Skintone Edition Volume 1 is a moving portrait of a life lived in sound.