Lo Recordings Announces a Susumu Yokota Box Set

Prior to his untimely death in 2015, Susumu Yokota released a slew of acclaimed ambient and electronic albums, several of which I’ve reviewed here on Opus. To help mark the tenth anniversary of his passing, Lo Recordings has announced plans to reissue all fourteen albums that Yokota released on his own Skintone label.

Skintone Edition, Volume 1 will feature remastered versions of Magic Thread (1998), Image 1983 – 1998 (1998), Sakura (1999), Grinning Cat (2001), Will (2001), The Boy and the Tree (2002), and Laputa (2003). The collection will be released digitally as well as in a 7-disc CD box set and a 13-disc vinyl box set. Not surprisingly, the vinyl set looks especially nice with its deluxe packaging and printing, liner notes, and poster. (It’ll just set you back around $370, plus shipping.)

In his own writeup of the Skintone Editions, Martyn Pepperell shared a quote from DJ Miku that helps explain what makes albums like Sakura and The Boy and the Tree so special, even after all this time:

Songwriting was like a diary for him. You would not rewrite your diary. I think he was more interested in the track’s momentum than in perfecting it. It was important for him to create music from what he felt in the moment. That’s why I think Yokota’s work is very emotional. He was never one to sacrifice the soul of a track to make it sound better. In other words, there is no lie in his works.

Skintone Edition, Volume 1 will be released on August 1, 2025, with Volume 2 arriving sometime in 2026. Both volumes are being released in collaboration with Yokota’s family.