Life

Susumu Yokota: Unreleased Works 94' - 97'

20 AUGUST 2026 · Curated by EMILIA, 000 curator

The back cover of Susumu Yokota's Unreleased Works 94'-97' on Transmigration: a blue sleeve with a white heron logo above the Transmigration wordmark, the artist and title printed in English and Japanese, and the two-disc tracklist (Dust, Wave, Obsession, Dove; Thirteen, No Way Back, Extra Terrestrial, Fortune).
The sleeve of Unreleased Works 94'-97', Susumu Yokota's eight-track posthumous collection on Transmigration (TM028).

After Susumu's passing in 2015, these recordings found their way to us. Eight tracks kept on DAT tapes, gifted to producer Ray Castle, never expecting them to surface. There is something deeply moving about hearing someone's unfinished thought thirty years later. What is art but an extension of memory?

A vinyl record resting half out of its inner sleeve, printed with circular Sound Metaphors text; the record label carries a stylised Mount Fuji graphic above the Japanese title アンリリースド・ワークス 94-97.
The record itself, pressed with a Mount Fuji label, restored and remastered with support from Berlin's Sound Metaphors.

I had the chance to pick it up at a little shop in Montréal and got completely blown away. The record opens with Dust and Wave, two tracks connected by the same shoreline. Electric bells dissolve into ocean sounds, and before you know it Dust has quietly handed you over to Wave. A combination of beach sounds, drum and bass and a progression I've never heard before. The airy texture left me with the impression of witnessing something more intimate than his previous work, and with a wider vision.

Extra Terrestrial draws you in with melodic synth and repetitive voices, hypnotic and patient, shifting only through subtle drum variations. Fortune closes the record with a spatial, reverb-drenched acid synth that somehow lands somewhere between disorientation and dance. A strange and perfect way to end.

There are things music does that have no explanation. A preview of Wave was all it took. I knew before I'd even heard it properly.

After all these years, these tracks feel so pure, so generous. A perfect recapitulation of what he was and always will be. Felt like a memory I never had but somehow recognised.

With all my respect, thank you Susumu.

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