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Sakura
 
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Sakura

~ Susumu Yokota (Artist)
4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
Price: £9.79 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Audio CD (1 Oct 1999)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Leaf
  • ASIN: B00004Y1VK
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 36,915 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

1. Saku
2. Tobiume
3. Uchu Tanjyo
4. Hagoromo
5. Genshi
6. Gekkoh
7. Hisen
8. Azukiiro No Kaori
9. Kodomotachi
10. Naminote
11. Shinsen
12. Kirakiraboshi

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ambient music. Just leave the fridge on for an hour, put microphone close by, record and release in nicely packaged artwork. That's what the cynics would say. They've clearly never been anywhere near Sakura. While Japan's Susumu Yokota is better known for leftfield techno and weird-beard house, this venture into the world of chilled-out soundscaping is captivating enough to rank alongside any of Brian Eno's Music For... classics. Tapping into the spirit of Eno's 1970's experimentalism (think My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts), tracks like the Afro-tinged "Uchu Tanjyo" and "Hisen" capture the sound of global drifting beautifully. The pace throughout (apart from the jazzed-up "Naminote" and Moroder-ish "Hogoromo") is metronomic, but never soporific. On "Saku" and the celestial "Kirakiraboshi", there's a rare delicacy on offer that's overwhelmingly emotional. You'll never think the same way about ambient music again.--Calvin Bush

CD Description
Susumu Yokota has chosen an unusual path that revisits, contemplates, and deconstructs his own past. SAKURA completes the trilogy that began with Yokota's incipient IMAGE and reconciliatory MAGIC THREAD, bringing the re-enlightened artist to a new level of consciousness and musical mastery.
SAKURA opens with the elegant, Eno/Lanois-like melodic movementsof "Saku", "Hagoromo", and "Tobiume", but gradually revealsYokota's grander designs. SAKURA marries the softly thrumming electronic/acoustic weave of IMAGE with MAGIC THREAD's probing pulses and unraveled rhythms, realigning the elements of Yokota's dance-floor craft. But Yokota doesn't simply addbeats; he unfolds the geometry of his music, preparing it to receive rhythm. "Gekkoh" and "Hisen" tenderly reassemble Yokota's exquisite musical matrices around these complementary beat-and-pulse patterns. Yet SAKURA is imperfect--body andsoul without spirit--until "Kodomotachi" re-absorbs IMAGE'sstray vocal ghosts into the music's reunified structures. At SAKURA's climax, Yokota celebrates the rebirth of his music, and art and artist rejoice in a new completeness. The exultant jazz of "Naminote" and the reflective benedictions of "Shinsen" and "Kirakiraboshi" end Yokota's brilliant cycle of introspection and transfiguration on a soaring spiritual high.

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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely stunning., 5 Oct 2004
I have to admit, I bought this on a whim with a view to padding out my CD collection with some ambient recordings. Prior to this, I'd not heard of Susumu Yokota but although 'Sakura' is the first of his albums I've listened to, it won't be the last.

To describe the tracks as chillout music would be crass in the extreme, as there's a mixture of styles here ranging from dreamy synth-driven works ('Saku'), through mellow techno (the awesome 'Genshi') right up to the full-on jazz-style noodling of 'Naminote'. Even so, the end results are blissful, almost organic sounding and in some cases deeply moving. Apparently Yokota has a fairly strong reputation as a producer, and on the strength of this work it's not difficult to understand why.

Comparisons between 'Sakura' and the early work of Brian Eno are justified too. Like some of Eno's earlier albums, 'Sakura' can be a bit hard to swallow in one go, at least initially. However perseverance pays off and, to be perfectly honest, I can't think of a better album to listen to with the lights turned low - not a mood-lifting album by any means, but certainly mood provoking, and that can't be bad.

To consider Susumu Yokota as an underrated genius isn't wide of the mark.

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than a nightcap..., 8 May 2005
By C. J. Statham - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Whenever my brain feels sore, beaten and withered up like a dried plum, I tend to have a bath, or a beer, or even both. But then I bought 'Sakura' with an interested curiousity that it would shine as much a Susumu's other work. After just one play, I rapidly realised that I would need neither a beer nor a bath to feel soothed and rejuvenated. This album contains some of the most inspiring and beautifully rendered sounds I have come across.
Expect cinematic collages of sound and masterfully layered styles that melt into a recording that Brian Eno, Phillip Glass and Aphex Twin probably all wish they had made themselves.
It is a veritable mind tonic.
Fantabulous
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Mesmeric, 17 Mar 2006
By Mr. S. M. Davies - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
There is a tranquillity in Yokota's 'Sakura' that in the hands of others would become sterility. With each track, Yokota seamlessly transports the listener through his idyllic paradise, presumably the isle much of this work is inspired by. From the opening, unadorned bass pulse of 'Saku', string-like synths arrive from what seems like miles away, wrapping themselves into a cocoon of dreamy, otherworldy music. The method will not blow you away, as there are barely any dramatic shifts in Yokota's armoury here, but like with the curtain of distant rainfall ever-present through 'Taku', this artist works through steady accumulation that is mostly just as satisfying and effective: you sense the artist revels in crystallizing a momentary wonder into a flowing, unravelling experience.
Unlike Aphex Twin's Ambient Works, there is little disparity of mood in this album. Whereas Aphex's work can shift from mesmeric beauty to the paranoid and nightmarish, Yokota's work presents a smoother listening experience, taking some of the aforementioned artist's stellar beauty and mixing it with the synth-rich warmth and playfulness of Air. Indeed, where Aphex's melodies would drift for the best part of ten minutes, Yokota involves livelier and more vivified arrangements that are in a constant process of evolution, gradually filtering in and out beautiful sounds, continuing others; for instance, the end of 'Tobiume' sees a mellifluous, reverbed guitar cleanly picking in the background: the effect is similar to Air's 'Walkie Talkie' album, yet in the hands of a master like Yokota, you are barely aware of the addition. As a result, 'Sakura' consistently represents an organic, natural experience, pleasingly removed from the austere, esoteric atmosphere of Ambient Works Volume II.
Other songs try and test the parameters of ambient to its limits. 'Uchu Tanjyo' brings some clattering, tribal beats to the sonic table, hatching a bubbling, tremeloed bass to their rhythm as a voice rambles over it all: the effect is interesting, but it is one of the lesser lights on this bright album, although in the context of the sonic landscape, you do feel as though this is just another of the surprises on Yokota's island - signs of life perhaps.
'Genshi' begins with a sinuous, burbling bass that threatens to at any point lift of into the realms of one of Yokota's house excursions; however, despite the insistent pace, a slow organ melody and backing strings are imposed on the rhythm, engendering the sense of watching the world go by from the train, that feeling of stasis and movement combined. It demonstrates the feeling of adventure in this work, even more so Yokota's dexterity in marrying disparate tempos to form a cohesive texture.
The end to this album is slightly disappointing, however. ‘Kirakiraboshi’ features some lovely twinkling melodies but ultimately lacks the strength of composition that is found in earlier tracks such as ‘Hisen’, as after a couple of minutes it fizzles out. Yokota could also involve more chord progression switches in his music a little more often, as it is the shift from the choral, classical instrumentation in ’Hisen’ to the soothing organ coda on ’Hysen’ that is the albums highlight. Although the steady process of weaving sounds in and out of set basslines does work on songs such as ‘Saku’, on others such as ‘Hagoromo’ the effect feels tedious and underwhelming.
Overall, however, a magnificent ambient album, and one that promises much for the future.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Japanese Beauty
`Sakura' had intrigued me for some time before I took the plunge and bought it - I could see it featuring regularly in fellow Amazonian's lists when crossed referenced to other... Read more
Published 8 months ago by D. Newton

5.0 out of 5 stars Awe-inspiring!
You could say an awful lot about this album, about the varying musical styles, tempos, spoken word parts, soundscapes, etc, etc. Read more
Published 11 months ago by C. Lee

4.0 out of 5 stars Achingly Beautiful
If you've followed recommendations to Susumu Yokota then this is a good place to start (then follow it with Grinning Cat or Sound of Sky). Read more
Published on 24 May 2007 by Lab Rat

5.0 out of 5 stars touching
I bought this album simply because i wanted a new CD and i liked the cover...pretty fine gamble i made there.
This is one of my favourite albums. Beautifuly crafted. Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm, beautiful sounds
Susumu Yokota has delivered an album that I can only describe as beautiful. To me the term 'sound tapestry' is apt to describe the sounds I hear on this album. Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2003 by Jay M

5.0 out of 5 stars Genius? Yea...
Sakura means cherry blossom, which is cool because this album sounds kinda like ambient Aphex doing tai chi in a Japanese park. Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2003 by ojos_el_naranja

5.0 out of 5 stars this is pretty genuis
the finest most beautiful electronic music ever crafted. i listen to it pretty much every night to send me into a lovely sleep and for me that says it all. Read more
Published on 24 Jun 2002 by undero

5.0 out of 5 stars Sakura is Yokotas' masterpiece.
This album is beutiful, by far his best most consistant work. Rich, warm and totally fluid sonics, the songs almost have a physical texture. Read more
Published on 7 Oct 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars "flawless"
Indeed, the man is a genius!! the album is probably the best thing I have heard in a long time, it's incomparable, and totally f***ing brilliant. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Stunning
Okay, so I know what you're thinking; "Susumu Yokota? Who?" Trust me on this one, if you buy this album, you will soon be thinking; "Susumu Yokota. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2001 by neil@idiot-jed.com

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