Ryuichi Sakamoto S/D

Every time I see this thread bumped I fear I'm going to read that he's died.

no kidding, really glad to see he's doing better

Beauty is still decent to my ears, I still think "Amore" is one of the best songs he's ever done. If you don't like it definitely don't get any of the albums that followed it until 1996, cuz I do think he tailed off quite a bit afterwards.

Smoochy was 1996 and that's fantastic, or is that what you're saying, that the 1990-95 period is underwhelming, but then he rallied?

I too love Smoochy, and Heartbeat (1992) as well. I also think Chasm, his last 'glitch pop' album (2004) is grand. He mostly fell off my radar after that, mainly because that minimal ambient electronica is not my forte, but I'm meaning to check all that newer stuff too. There's nothing in his catalogue that's inherently bad - his output being so diversified, it's just a matter of what's up your alley at any given time.

xp yeah that's what I'm saying, don't remember much of Smoochy but that sort of lighter, more hip-hop driven pop he was doing never really did it for me. the album 1996 was pretty damn good though and cast a new light on a lot of those tunes.

Chasm was one of the first I'd heard from him and I thought it was awesome - it was his first new album since I'd gotten into him and I kinda figured he'd be doing albums like it for a long time, just long amalgams of his entire career like that. I'm not much a fan of the recent collabs he's done with people like Fennesz and Alva Noto, putting harsh distortion over minimal piano bits isn't interesting in the slightest to me. Still wanna hear his newer solo piano stuff.

I've been passovely looking out for copies of Esperanto ever since I saw the thread on it here. Apropos S/D, what else is good in that vein (i.e. more,mfor lack of a better word, "weird")?

― ed.b, Friday, April 3, 2015 6:44 AM (2 hours ago)

b-2 unit is his other really weird one, more like early 80s post punk/industrial bricolage electro -- sounds v advanced for the time

ongaku zukan is probably my most played album by him but it is more in a melodic art pop vein but still quite experimental in parts.

futurista has a couple tracks that sound like esperanto but suspect you will hate some of the pop songs (w/ the vocalist from the peech boys)

the "field work" single's b-side "exhibition" is still the strangest music he's ever done -- and one of the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLm5hvuhtWA

the entire piece is 15 mins

Search: Thousand Knives (!!), B2 Unit (!!), Tokyo Joe, Adventures of Chatran OST, CBL (!!), Disappearance, Cinemage, CM / TV (!! seriously astonishing collection of TV spots and the like), Comica, Derrida OST, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence OST (!!), Ongaku Zukan, Playing the Piano (extended Japanese version has some worthwhile additions), Smoochy OST, Shining Boy & Little Randy OST (!!), Silk OST (!!), Soundbytes comp (!!), Soundtracks live comp (!!), High Heels OST, UTAU instrumentals disc, Wuthering Heights OST, Year Book 2005-2014, /04 (!!), /05 (!!), 1996 (!! w/ bonus tracks why not)
Consider: Chasm (lot of dreck, but some unbelievable stuff on there), BTTB, Casa, A Day in New York, The End Of Asia, Esperanto, Heartbeat (lotta shit, some greatness), Image Sketch, Little Buddha OST, Century of Reform (some dumb arrangement choices but the "Rhodes Version" tracks are top tier new age/ambient), Futurista, Neo Geo, Out Of Noise, Three, Harakiri OST, all of his late period collaborations with western ambient people
Destroy: Bricolages (mostly boring remixes by other artists), Femme Fatale OST, Summer Nerves, fuckawful Sweet Revenge album (though title track is gold), UTAU, トニー滝谷

and more, but fuck it

Can anybody help? The music on this vid at 5:15 onwards, I think it is really well known, is it a Sakamoto piece? Killing me...

https://youtu.be/-XVIFadHzZ8?t=5m14s

nope, not so well known. seems to be a version of material from Ryuichi's (completely gorgeous) Shining Boy & Little Randy OST. Ryuichi rearranges and re-titles themes all the time in his soundtracks, so without relistening through the whole thing i can't say for sure that this version isn't on the soundtrack itself, but knowing him and the circumstances it's probably one of his self-covers. nobody does a better job of consistently reimagining their own material...

skimming the soundtrack now it sounds like this uses bits and pieces throughout the whole thing, most of which isn't on youtube, but here's the full-blown theme itself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cj3Sy1nf1s

if you dig it, you'd profit well from tracking down as much of his soundtrack work and self-cover albums as you can. it's astonishing how much gutting pentatonic beauty he keeps on deck

after some more itunes spelunking, the version on the /05 live piano album is closer to what you hear in your video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geDUXEoOCwE

Thanks so much! I have /05, I quickly zipped through /04 and Playing The Piano but couldn't find it, what a lovely track.

nice! the Shining Boy OST, if you don't have it, has some really nice variations on the theme, less over-the-top than the one in that youtube

I will check it out, I'm def in the mood for some melancholic Sakamoto piano.

http://www.factmag.com/2016/02/03/ryuichi-sakamoto-alva-noto-interview/

New album announced -- sole details in email:

20170428

2XLP + CD + DIGITAL

A little more at his site:

http://www.sitesakamoto.com/

geez, what is it??

dude's been incredibly busy with soundtracks and collabs these last 10 years, but as far as actual studio material would this be the first since Out of Noise in 2009?

hard to believe Chasm was 13 years ago. that seemed like such a career-rejuvenating album at the time, like his entire resume on one disc. looking around now it appears the collabs were a bit more famous.

what I mean to say is, if it's anything other than solo piano or glitch-ambient I'll get excited

It's his 65th birthday today!

More piano + glitch?

http://pitchfork.com/news/71081-ryuichi-sakamoto-announces-new-album-async/

The beauty of "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" makes me tear up to this day.

anyone hear the new one yet?

have just been alerted to the presence of Year Book 2005-2014, a compilation of commissioned work that thus far has gone unreleased. his other commercial music comps have been great so I would guess this one is as well.

Got the new one, and currently on a second listen.

In short, it's fab. Yes, it's ambient/glitch (which may disappoint a few upthread) but with a much less austere tonal palette than the collaboration records (where he was basically adding piano ornaments to other people's dronescapes, not that there's anything wrong with that). It's low key but colourful - lurrrrvely Prophet 5 chords on Zure, for example. And the odd melodic flourish that'll make you well up a bit in places too.

Will see how it plays out over subsequent listens, but I'm loving it so far. What with the Revenant soundtrack being his best OST in years, his post-illness return to work on such stellar form is an inspiring thing to behold.

Is there a track with David Sylvian on the new one?..,

new album is pretty amazing

^
i really like the combination of introspective, lyrical piano pieces with sound art tracks on async.

Great album

yup

he's in NYC next weekend for a film retro of his scores

https://quadcinema.com/program/forbidden-colours-ryuichi-sakamoto-at-the-movies/

The Revenant too recent for a retrospective?

could be

also an arthouse venue

true

while aysnc just breezed by like a cool autumn day on the first few listens, I've recently returned to it and found it to be a stunner. I thought his previous solo album Out of Noise was kind of boring but I really like the "14 flavors of ambient" thing going on here, not to mention how the title/theme "async" manifests itself in several ways. I wish it was a bit more melodic but only because the actual melodies on here are absolutely gorgeous. I like the plinky plonky stuff. Reminds me a bit of The Ship by Eno, not in any thematic way but rather how the openness and sense of space lets you hear the compositions in a number of ways.

also it occurred to me that this is sort of a spiritual successor to B-2 Unit and Esperanto in some ways

Doco & a concert film coming our way soon, which likely means US/UK audience have already had a chance to see them - any good?

Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA
Ryuichi Sakamoto: async Live at the Park Avenue Armory

doc is playing in NY, haven't seen it yet

There was a one-off showing in DC that I missed. Read that it shows his interest in director Tarkovsky

Last fall a friend told me a story about Ryuichi Sakamoto, the renowned musician and composer who lives in the West Village. Mr. Sakamoto, it seems, so likes a particular Japanese restaurant in Murray Hill, and visits it so often, that he finally had to be straight with the chef: He could not bear the music it played for its patrons.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/dining/restaurant-music-playlists-ryuichi-sakamoto.html

Tony Rayns in sight and sound said:

Moderately interesting but deeply unsatisfying, this not-very-intimate portrait of the musician Sakamoto Ryuichi covers a lot of ground without revealing or even suggesting anything surprising to anyone who has followed Sakamoto’s career...

His private life was evidently off-limits: there’s no mention of either of his marriages, or of his reportedly on-going relationship with his manager, with whom he has two children. As far as the film is concerned, Sakamoto lives and works alone...

Television’s appetite for films like this one is so voracious that most pass by more or less unexamined; criticism of the form of such ‘arts docs’ remains stuck at a fairly primitive level...

Schible’s film is far from the worst offender among recent arts docs, {but while} Its picture of Sakamoto recovering from cancer and getting his musical juices flowing again is mildly diverting, its impact is minimal and its methods are desultory.

actually, I can paste the whole review from a pdf, if you want, but that's pretty much it.

fwiw, Rayns had much more interesting things to say about Schrader's First Reformed in the same issue. He didn't like that either.

amazing detail in that restaurant music piece:

It was also not very loud, and here we arrive at an issue that may concern older customers more than younger ones. Mr. Sakamoto objects to loud restaurant music, and often uses a decibel meter on his phone to measure the volume of the sound around him.

would love to eat at a restaurant with that playlist tbh.

I want to eat in that restuarnat the next time I am in NYC

that sakamoto dinner time playlist is excellent, by the way.

for those with spotify, search "The Kajitsu Playlist". it's good BGM for dinner, perhaps, but it's also good BGM for wandering around your house and living

cool, thx

Saw the film last night in San Francisco, absolutely loved it

I saw sakamoto in kajitsu a few years ago! it's a wonderful restaurant.

I can't say I loved the doc, but if you're a fan, I see no reason not to catch it. it's enjoyable. I esp liked the field recording scenes.

not much YMO content tho, it's pretty focused on his solo material and especially the last few years. I caught a Q&A session with RS and the director and they mentioned that interviews with hosono and takahashi specifically conducted for the film were edited out. oof!

Caught 'Coda' on telly last night. A very ambient documentary, no real narrative, just being able to see Sakamoto hunt for and record sounds, playing about in the studio, reminiscing. Needles to say I loved it. What a handsome man he is, too. See this if you can.

Favourite scene: Him trying to get a nice sound on his terrace. He puts a glass vase upside down to record the ticking of the rain drops, but it's not quite what he's after. He then picks up a blue bucket, looks at it for a while, and then puts it on his head, steps outside, and we see him from behind listening to the rain fall on the bucket on his head. Tranquil and endearing.

yea I've heard a lot about what this doc *isn't* so I've been wondering what exactly it is. if it's just 2 hours of him messing around i'll still watch it

I saw it a couple of months ago, and I thought it was great. Doesn't interrogate him very hard, but it's a v enjoyable 90 mins of hanging out with an interesting guy who does interesting things in an interesting way.

@Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_)
Could you please post the full review of Tony Wayns of Coda? I'm very interested to know what else he said. I searched with Google but could not find the review.
Thanks!