Lo Recordings proudly presents the reissue of ‘Laputa’, the 2003 album by the late Japanese producer and composer Susumu Yokota. Originally released on his Skintone imprint – and available here for the first time outside Japan – ‘Laputa’ stands among the most enigmatic works in Yokota’s catalogue, a record built from fleeting fragments, shifting textures and quietly disorienting sonic collage.
Often characterised as ‘the forgotten album’, its release fell between The Leaf Label and Lo Recordings and was criminally overlooked at the time. Yokota created perhaps the most abstract and ethereal of all his works for this album.
Across fifteen concise pieces, some lasting little more than a couple of minutes, the album unfolds like a sequence of passing scenes. Ambient drones, stray melodic figures and found sounds appear and dissolve with dreamlike logic, creating a listening experience that feels less like a set of songs than a series of impressions. Birdsong, distant voices, pedal steel guitar, gongs and ghostly harmonies drift through the record’s hazy atmosphere, each element arriving briefly before slipping away again.