Spectreview: Susumu Yokota – Cloud Hidden

-LIGHT GREEN-

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We’re really only aware of the artists that managed to break through the mold. Many more struggle to gain audiences for their entire artistic careers, with some tragic few only attaining general familiarity after they’ve passed away. Susumu Yokota, who died in 2015 at the age of 54, won’t be alive to see his work spread further and further outside of core listening circles, but as the lines between genres continue to blur together, so is his audience gently expanding. Across his career, Yokota toyed with countless styles of electronic music, from his early days as a House DJ to his boundary-defying ambient work. With over 30 albums under his belt (and more music discovered every year) he’s built up quite a formidable discography.

Cloud Hidden is one such discovery: a collection of unreleased songs and sketches, some of which would later form 2002’s The Boy and The Tree. Divorced from that context, it’s a shifting kaleidoscope of traditional Japanese instrumentation and percussion samples, all under an overall ambient umbrella that occasionally threatens to cross into dance territory. Nowadays Yokota’s genre-bending is relatively commonplace, but that highlights what made his work so special back then. Moods and backgrounds vary wildly, from the vibrant festival of “Spectrum of Love” to the cavernous flight of “Ama and the Mountain” to the dissonant nocturnal riverbed of “Flowing with the Tao.” One could be tempted to relate this work (and several of his other similar works) to the vaguely spiritual pillow sounds of new age, but Cloud Hidden is too anxious, too alive for that label. There are genuinely pretty moments (the gentle blooming of “The Future of Ecstasy” and the dewy emergence of vocalization on “Direct Transmission” for example) but they’re offset by trips back to ground level (notice how the nauseous crawl of “The Reality of Reincarnation” feels like watching a 3D world in 2D). There is, however, a indistinct Buddhist lean in the music, at least in the way it’s framed. From the album’s rippling opening moments to the sigh of the digital sea at its end, Cloud Hidden feels like a slow salve, daring the listener to embrace its twists and turns with a clear mind and open lungs.

Recommended post-meditation.