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artist : Susumu Yokota
title : The Boy and The Tree
year : 2002
label : Leaf
cat : BAY25CD
url : www.posteverything.com
date : Oct-14-2002
genre : Electronic
quality : 192kbps / 44.1kHz / Full Stereo
source : CDDA
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01 The Colour of Pomegranates
02 Live Echo
03 Fairy Link
04 Grass, Tree and Stone
05 Secret Garden
06 Rose Necklace
07 Beans
08 Plateau on Plateau
09 Red Swan
10 Thread Leads to Heaven
11 Future Tiger
12 Blood and Snow
12 tracks | 54:41 min | 75,2 MB
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Susumu Yokota's music is a protean beast, morphing from blissfully
delicate ambience (The Magic Thread) into flawless dancefloor house
(2001's vinyl-only Will) with a fluidity most producers would need
an extra five aliases for. Like much of his best û and best-known û
work, The Boy and the Tree exists somewhere between the two
absolutes, a sort of kinetic mood music whose strength lies not in
any notable originality, but in its restrained, meticulously
detailed execution. Where much minimal and ambient music contents
itself with creating a barren soundfield mapped out by empty
spaces, Yokota uses sonic events to evoke a vivid, moving image,
filling the interstitial silences with a sense of place, colour and
activity.
Sounds good, eh? Well it is. The problem is you really have to pay
attention. You need to sit down for 45 minutes, close your eyes and
just listen; so stop reading the fucking paper. It's only
'background music' if you're crass enough to bugger off and do
something else while you play it. Although it doesn't measure up to
2000's Sakura, this albumÆs startlingly visual arrangements still
reward; without using a small child and a Dictaphone, I challenge
you to find anything that sounds so much like a kid lost in a
forest this year. Unlike its predecessor, the more playful Grinning
Cat, The Boy and the Tree is populated with shadows, mystery and
threat, buzzing with a dark, ethereal wonder that only lightens
towards the end of the album.
It's a fairytale sound, and fairytales have their wolves and
witches, the childish fragility is counterpointed by rumbles of
dissonance, menacing shapes that loom periodically out of the trees
to growl warnings. The opener The Colour of Pomegranates begins
with a low hum scattered with late-night birdcalls and warped
chimes, then succumbs to rattling, clustered xylophone notes that
are slightly off from everything else; an unsettling, ritualistic
sound in a jarring time signature, later echoed in the primitive,
semi-musical clanks that hijack Fairy Link.
Like Four Tet and Fridge's Kieran Hebden, Yokota marries his
electronic literacy with a penchant for simple, traditional and
acoustic instrumentation. The Secret Garden drifts wonderfully into
This Mortal Coil territory with trickles of harp and detached,
spectral vocals, before bursting into a chorus of shrill bells and
synth throbs, while Live Echo rescues gamelan music from the
typically irreverent thrashing it got on Aphex Twin's Drukqs.
ThereÆs even a nice, incongruously pneumatic surprise towards the
end in the shape of Future Tiger, a dollop of Eastern-flavoured
psychedelia that bounces along on tabla, bongos and pipes. Like
emerging from the forest, in fact, into a David Holmes set. Trust
your attention span to go the distance; nigh on everything this man
does is special, and The Boy in the Tree is no exception.
Nathan Midgley.
Yokota explains-
'The boy of The Boy And The Tree is me, and this is my dream story.
There is an island called Yakushima in the south of Japan, which is
designated as a world heritage site. It rains a lot there and there
are many trees that are two or three thousand years old. It is a
very mysterious island. Also, there is an animation film called
Mononokehime directed by Hayao Miyazki. The scenario, nature
itself, is the living thing and this film has sharp animal
sensibilities.'
'These two things have effected this album very much.'
'I also moved to the suburbs of Tokyo two years ago, and live in a
place which is closer to the mountains and river. I go to the
mountains a few times a week and this atomosphere is reflected in
my music. The smell of grass and trees, the air in the woods makes
my mind clear. And it gives good effect for making music. Walking
among the big trees, I can hear my heartbeat and also the sound of
the earth echo.'
.......................................................................
CERTiFiED QUALiTY iNC 2002
shouts: kw - sb - ftd - soup - cms - igr - nuhs - dps - ube
Files
Path
Size
[BMW]-[Electronic-2002]-(75.1 MB in 12 files of 192kbps Stereo)-[bende