Customer Reviews

Sakura

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

for those of you who are in need of verse-chorus-verse music, look elsewhere. but for those of us who are just amazed at the potential of loop-based, mood-enhancing, possibility-expanding music-making, look no further. awesome all around (as susumu yokota usually is). 'nuff said

just put this cd in your discman and put some headphones on...and you'll escape to a paradise you have never known before. maybe, the most beautiful pieces of music i've ever heard, it just captures you...beautiful looping ambient melodies over one another just create such a gorgeous atmosphere. elements of jazz, techno, ethno that mix seamlessly together from the first track to the last. perfect use of percussion where it's necessary but not taking away from the track as you often find with ambient records. if you like four tet, or mum, or anything that has a beautiful ambient background, you have to get this album. i have it playing right now and i just can't stop it. do yourself a favor.

I was amazed after hearing this CD for the first time, and it certainly ranks among the best ambient of 2000. I will admit though, that I am only writing this review as a warning... Sakura is NOTHING like any of Susuma Yakota's other works. While they might be fine works within their own genre, much of the 'other' Susumu Yakota would best be classified as Jamiroquai's backup band having a summit meeting with the kings of japanese cheezy house club music.

To each their own, but I was seriously dissapointed that Susuma Yakota has not made anything else along the lines of Sakura. Oh well, this makes me appreciate it all the more I guess... and Sakura is his most recent, so let's hope he continues to explore more ambient realms!

A truly rewarding listening experience my top 'surprise' of the year so far...

Yokota's Sakura is a collection of brilliant, warm chillout themes, opening like the latest Biosphere, navigating Apollo territory for a bit, melding into nectarine downtempo around 'Hisen', all the while becoming ever the more interesting as it is contemplative. It is hard to remember which tracks have beats, and in Yokota's world it doesn't matter. By the time 'Kodomotachi' arrives, the listener is reveling in the mercurial interplay of subtle melodies and refined reverb. With a welcome suddenness, the looping keys of 'Naminote' redefine nu-jazz, effortlessly matching Innerzone Orchestra's 'At Les' as an artful hybrid of IDM and acoustic jazz. More subdued themes shake out the remaining momentum, but by now the player is on repeat play, ready for another round of this underestimated bliss.

Still, seven years after its original release, "Sakura" (the Japanese word for ornamental cherry trees) by Susumu Yokota continues to sound fresh. The Japanese experimental ambient composer and house DJ presents us with a very mellow album that can be great company for quiet moments such as bedtime as well when you are reading or writing.

After being introduced to his work first through the soundtrack of the movie Babel (where the track "Gekkoh" from this album is featured), I felt compelled to look into his work and "Sakura" has proved to be a very nice find that I keep looping through effortlessly. Totally worth checking out for fans of low key electronic/ambient music.

Very cinematic soundscapes by Japan's premier techno artist/producer. Each song plunges into a different side of the human psyche and mines it for the right connection of nostalgia and optimism. It's not a dance album but rather a chill out album. Very few drum/dance beats flow on this album. It's good to relax and sit on the sofa to.

Very cinematic soundscapes by Japan's premier techno artist/producer. Each song plunges into a different side of the human psyche and mines it for the right connection of nostalgia and optimism. It's not a dance album but rather a chill out album. Very few drum/dance beats flow on this album. It's good to relax and sit on the sofa to.

Rhodes/Wurlitzer piano sounds cover this album like a fresh snowfall over Mt. Fuji; restrained, reverberated drum machines count regular time, and other-worldly vocal samples interject tastefully - these too soaked in dreamy delays. Yokota's subtle jazz colouring on strangely rational and listenable progressions are the real star on the album. Mixed loudly and centered confidently, the music paints its pictures with this broad brush, while phasing drums sporadically syncopate across the aural landscape.

It has an east-meets-west sound, and not all the tracks take-off to Yokota's often achieved cloudy and surreal aural ink-paintings, but those that do work wonderfully. Some tracks create a busy tension that never resolves, others sit much sounder with a fuller, more transcending sound (you could play this album to recruit cult members, I'm sure), but it is the more traditional neo-jazz tracks (of which there are two) that sing the loudest for this listener. It's not quite the lo-fi experiment as often quoted, but it is surely respectable, gentle, soothing and often surreal.

Very cinematic soundscapes by Japan's premier techno artist/producer. Each song plunges into a different side of the human psyche and mines it for the right connection of nostalgia and optimism. It's not a dance album but rather a chill out album. Very few drum/dance beats flow on this album. It's good to relax and sit on the sofa to.

I was amazed after hearing this CD for the first time, and it certainly ranks among the best ambient of 2000. I will admit though, that I am only writing this review as a warning... Sakura is NOTHING like any of Susuma Yakota's other works. While they might be fine works within their own genre, much of the 'other' Susumu Yakota would best be classified as Jamiroquai's backup band having a summit meeting with the kings of japanese cheezy house club music.

To each their own, but I was seriously dissapointed that Susuma Yakota has not made anything else along the lines of Sakura. Oh well, this makes me appreciate it all the more I guess... and Sakura is his most recent, so let's hope he continues to explore more ambient realms!

A truly rewarding listening experience my top 'surprise' of the year so far...