The name may not ring a bell at all, but if you’re a fan of electronic music, you’ll likely hear the man’s influence everywhere. The Japanese songwriter/producer is responsible for producing some of the most well-known Japanese pop acts over the past two decades, including Perfume, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Capsule. A huge variety of Western artists have quoted him or his acts as influences: Madeon, Porter Robinson, SOPHIE, Passion Pit, Zedd. His work with group Perfume is overtly and explicitly obvious on the likes of Madeon’s and Porter Robinson’s work, PC Music’s pop eclecticism immediately traceable to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s music, and so on. As of the writing of this article, we’re even due to hear the release of ‘Crazy Crazy’, a collaboration between Yasutaka Nakata, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and Charli XCX.

His sound often feels like Daft Punk except more intensely maximalist, bubblier, with more overt cues to technopop and new wave music. This is not true of all of his acts, and the likes of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu demonstrates a kookier, completely different side to his production style. There’s a lot of common threads though: gorgeous indulgent anime-esque melodies and jazz-inspired chord progressions are staples of his music, for instance.

His production discography is expansive and worth checking out in full, but here’s 10 tracks to give you a taste of his music.