Artist: Susumu Yokota
Title: Mother
Label: Lo Recordings
Genre: Electronic
Bitrate: 160kbit av.
Time: 00:52:22
Size: 64.36 mb
Rip Date: 2009-01-14
Str Date: 2009-02-16
1. Love Tendrilises (Ft. Casper Clausen, Anna Bronsted 5:08
& Kaori)
2. Breeze (Ft. Nancy Elizabeth) 3:00
3. A Ray Of Light (Ft. Nancy Elizabeth) 3:01
4. A Flower White (Ft. Nancy Elizabeth) 4:29
5. The Natural Process (Ft. Caroline Ross) 4:47
6. Reflect Mind (Ft. Nancy Elizabeth & Kaori) 3:41
7. Inside Foresighted (Ft. Kaori) 1:45
8. Meltwater (Ft. Caroline Ross & Kaori) 4:54
9. Tree Surgeon (Ft. Kaori, Claire Hope & Panos 3:55
Ghikas)
10. Suture (Ft. Casper Clausen & Anna Bronsted) 5:24
11. Bonda (Ft. Kaori) 1:58
12. 12 Days 12 Nights (Ft. Nancy Elizabeth) 5:04
13. Warmth 5:16
Release Notes:
Following on from the ambient touches of last year's Love Or
Die, Mother finds prolific electronic composer Susumu Yokota
hooking up with a number of vocalists for a collection of
vocally-driven song-based compositions.
Guesting on the album are a host of contributors, including
Efterklang's Caspar Klausen, Our Broken Garden's Anna Bronsted
and members of The Chap. Nancy Elizabeth of the Leaf label
stands out in particular, largely thanks to a run of three
outstanding tracks towards the beginning of the album:
'Breeze' couples simple electronic beats with dramatically
charged string sequences, all reinforcing the steady whisper
of the Wigan-born singer's unwaveringly strong, even vocal.
'Ray Of Light' is less rigidly structured, relying on a
feathery ambience spun from dislocated rhodes phrases and
hushed vocal harmonies, while 'A Flower White' introduces a
more mobilised sound complete with guitar riffs and a full
complement of beats.
Everything here seems to be cast in that complex yet
familiarly synthetic Susumu Yokota sound, coated in glistening
reverb and strange, atmospheric midi gestures. This is
probably best exemplified by the almost Cocteau Twins-like
'Meltwater', imbued with an airy sense of abstraction and
all-round otherness that detaches the vocal from conventional,
'real' songwriting. There's a touch of Robert Wyatt to the
melody of 'Suture', its multi-layered male-female vocal
interacting with sleepy, filtered drums and a wall of hazy,
digitally rendered orchestration drifting around in the
background. Only one track here features Yokota unaccompanied
by singers: closing piece 'Warmth' is an echo chamber piano
solo in a similar vein to Library Tapes and the like - it's by
far the most straight-forward track on the album, but also
probably one of the most resonant.
A very strong showing from the veteran composer, Mother finds
him sounding replenished and still vital, even twenty or so
albums into his career.