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Eoin Murray
13 October 2022, 13:47

Premiere: Yuto Takei ‘Svalbard’

Tokyo’s Yuto Takei finds meaning in ideas of space, time and distance in his otherworldly electronic EP for Belgium’s Maloca Records

Premiere: Yuto Takei ‘Svalbard’

Yuto Takei will release a new EP, titled ‘MA’, via Belgium’s Maloca Records this month. Listen to ‘Svalbard’ below. 

The Tokyo-based composer and DJ’s seven-track debut for La Motel’s imprint explores different perspectives of the Japanese Kanji character “間”, or “Ma”, as it relates to notions of time, space and distance. The artist, whose previous works include video game soundtracks and car promotions including Gran Turismo and Lexus, explores this concept through a varied electronic lens; otherworldly ambient and balearic soundscapes, spaced-out electro grooves and rumbling percussion are all spoken for and expanded upon beautifully. 

Speaking about the release, Yuto Takei said: "When talking about time, ‘Ma’ means moment. We feel a nice moment from a nice experience. When talking about place, ‘Ma’ means space and has traditionally meant room as well. For example, tea room is ‘茶の間, Cha-no-Ma’, because we spend good moments with tea there. 

“When talking about distance, ‘Ma’ means distance between each other, physical and social. Therefore, ‘人, Hito’ is a Japanese word for a person as an individual, and ‘人間, Ningen’ is a Japanese word for human in our society and the world. Even during Covid regulation time, I had nice moments with nice people in nice places. There were moments I was able to experience because of that period. I got a lot of energy from it and had great production times. Definitely my tracks this time are linked by various ‘間, Ma” senses.”

The release comes paired with a remix of opening track, ‘Oriental Microscope’, by Konduku, who takes the ethereal synth arps and field recordings of the original and transforms them into a cosmic dancefloor mood-builder. 

‘MA’ will be released via Maloca Records on 21st October. Pre-order it here