SUSUMU YOKOTA & ROTHKO Distant Sounds of Summer

This collaboration with avant rock pioneers ROTHKO is certainly YOKOTA's most accessible album to date. Its mixture of the sublime voice of CAROLINE ROSS with loping beats, resonant bass and wideopen spaces, creates an epic widescreen tour de force that oozes quality and beauty. Sometimes the deep twanging tones sound like a deep sea RY COODER soundtrack whilst the pure and fragile tones of the voice suggest an elegiac English folk sensibility. Other times the broken beats and world music ambience collide to form a supernatural kind of funk reminiscent of MADLIB, and yet never is there a sense of disparity or confusion. At all times Yokota 's masterful production coheres the music into a tangible whole that makes one feel completely enveloped and lost in a wonderful world of sound. Album can be described best as "Deceptively powerful" , "Moments of proper, unearthly beauty" , "Probably one of the most intense records possible… totally captivating" .