Originally released in a 500 CD run for the Japanese market in 1998, Susumu Yokota's "Magic Thread" album is an eleven-song window into the years that the late Japanese composer, producer and DJ's friends and collaborators remember as some of the happiest of his life. Inaugurating Skintone, the record label he named after his mid-to-late '90s Ebisu district club night, the album feels like a bridge between the techno and deep house that Yokota and his friends DJed at Skintone, and the ambient, abstract electronics and field recordings that were on the verge of becoming more prominent in his work. It's almost as if he were leaving the nightclub and wandering into morning quietude.

Over the course of eleven tracks, Yokota constructs a vivid, atmospheric soundworld full of magic, imagination, nostalgia, and dreams. Opening with the misty drones, bleeps, and gentle, clockwork grooves of 'Weave' and the factory assembly line aesthetics of 'Reflux', the album unfolds like an astral journey through different realms of sound, all unified by Yokota's undefinable magic thread. An early highlight is the shuffling, hauntological house number 'Circular', driven by a ghostly drum loop that points towards the empty city street explorations Burial began espousing in the early 2000s. From there, Yokota plays with rattling percussion and sweeping synths on 'Spool', before reaching into the infinite on the skippy dance track 'Potential'.

By the time 'Fibre' kicks in, he's dropped into full ambient synth mode, balancing misty pads with crackly noises and tones out of a hospital ICU. Ultimately, it serves as a palette cleanser for the urgent industrial machinescapes of 'Metabolic' and the experimental noise fuzz that runs through 'Stitch'. From there, Yokota closes things out with the chunky/dream beat sculpture shown off on 'Blend' and the droning outro number, 'Melt'.

Two years later, "Magic Thread" was reissued on CD and vinyl for worldwide release as part of Skintone's overseas deal with Leaf. Twenty-five years later, it's being reissued in vinyl and CD formats as part of Lo Recordings' ongoing Susumu Yokota "Skintone Editions" project. As many of you will have observed already, it will be available in August as part of a 7-LP box set. Thankfully, over the next year, they're also releasing the albums in a standalone manner. "Magic Thread" represents the beginning of that side of the endeavour.

"Magic Thread" is due for release in vinyl, CD and digital formats via Lo Recordings on August 1 (pre-order here)