SUSUMU YOKOTA 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Way back in 1995, the late Susuma Yokota joined forces with Ray Castle, an Australian producer then based in Japan, for an album of 'tribal-ritual ambient' tracks as Mantaray. For whatever reason, the trippy, partially mixed patchwork of effects-laden percussion, mind-altering electronics, dreamy chords and mind-altering vocal samples was not released on vinyl first time round - hence this edition from archival release specialists Transmigration. It's a genuinely unique album that's alternately becalmed and unsettling, offering a psychedelic drift through hallucinatory, dawn-ready soundscapes that features plenty of subtle nods towards Japanese and Indigenous Australian musical culture. It's basically a slept-on 90s ambient classic, so this vinyl reissue is well worth picking up.

Review: Madrid label Glossy Mistakes proudly present the first ever dual release of Susumu Yokota's 1997-8 albums 'Fruits Of The Room' and 'Greenpeace', made under his Stevia alias. The two albums were Yokota's dedication to the early days of Japanese club culture, which back then was informed upon by the psych'ed-out dancey rock of the 1960s and the fallout of US breaks / rave. The first of these two reissues, 'Greenpeace', is jazzy and roomy, and is sonically contemporaneous to the big beat stylings of Coldcut or Herbalizer, but thrown brazenly into an ambient, psychedelic rave context.