This week has been, at least up in Guelph, Reading Week. I guess it’s called Spring Break down in the states, but as you can guess by the name it’s not nearly as fun up here. I’ve been spending the whole week reading and working (well, with just a little of Resident Evil 4 thrown in, and my music choices have been correspondingly out of the ordinary.

Susumu Yokota is someone I got into based purely on good reviews; on a trip to Toronto with more cash to spare than normal I splurged and picked up an import copy of Grinning Cat and a few trips later I caved and bought The Boy & The Tree. I haven’t had the cash to pick up Sakura yet, but it’s on my list.

Grinning Cat was first, and since it was practically all I listened to on a trip to Boston that year it’s still my favorite, although it’s not as pristinely ambient as the other two; tracks like “Card Nation” and “Lapis Lazuli” manage to incorporate beats that are far more central without ever veering near the sound of Yokota’s house output. And since my taste for ambient is pretty selective, the odd change of pace was a good introduction. But it’s The Boy & The Tree that’s been the real revelation this week; at work, at home, with the volume loud or soft, with background noise inhibiting it or on headphones; some ineffable quality in the music seeps through whatever circumstances I pitch it into and seemingly magically make the day seem calmer.

It’s been my subjective experience that ambient is one of the forms of music that’s easiest to (for lack of a better word) fake, so it’s not as if what appeals to me, what fascinates in Yokota’s music is that it’s vastly different than most of the genre (although his sounds do seem to me to be in and of themselves more beautiful); there’s just some mysterious x-factor about the way he puts them together.

Of course, given that for me Yokota’s work has that “special something”, I’d normally wonder how many others felt the same way; but he’s gotten enough praise that it’s not just me saying he’s on to something.