Ryuichi Sakamoto S/D

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!

anybody heard the 2015 deluxe reissue of Ongaku Zukan/Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia? fully loaded with bonus tracks + a whole extra disc of unreleased stuff

http://www.discogs.com/Ryuichi-Sakamoto-%E9%9F%B3%E6%A5%BD%E5%9B%B3%E9%91%91-Ongaku-Zukan-2015-Edition/release/6830161

Wow! No, but I want to.

It's fantastic. Also, weirdly, it's on Spotify (and I presume a bunch of other stream/download sites): https://open.spotify.com/album/2CI4X2v5UpNLxh6RFpspHR?si=YJFSsKveR9Sj-oPc_lZ5OA

The original Ongakuzukan tracklisting is so much better than the Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia version...

It astonishes me that someone with a back catalogue as sprawling as Sakamoto's still has over an hour's worth of unreleased material, makes you wonder how much more there is.

uh wow, that looks pretty excellent. will have to be on the lookout.

I wonder if there's any overlap with this:

https://www.discogs.com/Ryuichi-Sakamoto-Works-I-CM/release/2283320

which is mostly Sakamoto doing commercial music, but believe it or not, it's very good

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Hidariude No Yume were also reissued with bonus discs of outtakes and unreleased stuff, and then there's been four volumes of the Year Book series (the latest volume of which, 1985-1989, has five discs). I think there's a LOT of stuff in the vault!

I love his commercial music!

listening to the Ongaku Zukan/Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia reissue now, thanks for the head's up! speaking of sakamoto:

.@0PN's next EP for @WarpRecords includes a remix by master composer @ryuichisakamoto https://t.co/FeSnqS0MxL

— Resident Advisor (@residentadvisor) October 25, 2018

Listening to this as well. A lot of it is basically his fusion album – Japanese melodies over Gaucho-ish horn arrangements, Fairlights pads and electronic percussion. It goes down pretty easily but has some nice 80s production touches. The first track was stuck in head this am and is a full-on YMO reunion cum big band. YMBB?

This = Ongaku Zukan

Also, listening to this makes me realize how long it took before I really *got* Sakamoto. I think my first exposure to him was on Sylvian’s first several records and Gentlemen Take Polaroids . I also read the entry about him in the Trouser Press Record Guide (an early bible for me) – the descriptions of his pedigree and Japanese-Western fusion experiments made his records sound incredibly exotic but very little of his catalogue (or YMO’s) was available then (early 90s).

When I finally heard Neo Geo, the followup to Ongaku and produced by Bill Laswell (Sakamoto was kind of the designated Fairlight guy in his Session All-Stars around that time – he’s the one noodling at the beginning of the last track on PiL’s Album), I was a little underwhelmed. It was the first of his own releases featuring big names, and while there were hints of what I would eventually love about him, it had fewer textural experiments and less ambition than I had hoped for. The same was largely true of Heartbeat, the two solid Sylvian collaborations aside.

It was only when I happened upon a cutout Dutch copy of Left Handed Dream and Technodelic at Borders Books and Music that I began to understand what the fuss was about. Yes, he can be overly sentimental at times but at its best the orchestral and Japanese formalism sounds fabulous juxtaposed with various electronic experiments.

Even still, it’s never been very easy to get a complete picture of his output – I’ve still never seen a physical copy of B-2 Unit and I literally just heard Illustrated/Ongaku this week, which are hugely important records in his catalogue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUaNz9M8fs8

this is extremely cool

maybe my favorite single of the year thus far actually

Over the last month I've been really diving into his solo works (with some mixed results). I've been delighted to find albums such as B-2 Unit and Esperanto have finally clicked with me. The original version of Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia was a revelation too. Async was the clear standout of his later works although there's still a lot I haven't listened to.

The biggest find is the Works I - CM compilation mentioned a couple of times on this thread by frogbs. That is an incredible collection of music that I've probably played ten times in the last week alone. Great tip on that one!

Isn’t it though? Love it!

I honestly can't stop listening to it. I notice there is a volume two as well. Hopefully that's a similar quality as I'm going to need another fix soon.

nice, thanks for bumping it!

https://pc.video.dmkt-sp.jp/ft/s0007155

It looks like Sakamoto is doing a live streaming performance next week on something called DTV, who also seem to be streaming a few other gigs of his from the last few years.

It being a Japanese streaming site, it appears to be completely locked down (I couldn't get anything to play even with a VPN) but someone here might have better luck than me?

So the stream seems to be up and running here: https://pc.video.dmkt-sp.jp/ti/10000238
Working fine VPN'ed into Japan.

They're showing a 2011 gig now, apparently the live stream starts at 7pm Japan time. (11am here in London!)

enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6td9KUZMfw&pbjreload=10

hmm not sure if that worked... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6td9KUZMfw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv3Iqzpv3_I

In this documentary, filmed while he was recording Ongaku Zukan, Sakamoto mentions that he has recorded 30 tracks for the album from which he will choose ten, so I'm guessing that's where the supplemental material for the reissue came from.

Realized this am that the record he produced and arranged for Virginia Astley, Hope in a Darkened Heart, is really required listening for anyone interested in Ryuichi’s mid-80s classy orchestral Fairlight experimental pop phase, a la Ongaku Zukan and his contemporaneous work w David Sylvian.

It’s a legitimately weird record – with nursery rhyme-melodies sung in Astley’s little girl falsetto over Ryuichi’s booming gated drums, sequenced music boxes and gamelans. The duet with Sylvian himself that leads off the record is a pretty unique entry in his catalogue:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5nwDAFzUqt7hVVsKoWGcJN?si=xX7P9oCVScqGde8qpsO5eg

Ohhh! Thanks for the recommendation, sounds ace!

It is! And if you want to go the Bandcamp route

https://virginiaastley.bandcamp.com/

Finally watched the Playing Piano for the Isolated concert last week. It's great!

NIT's spotify link is to a mellow 80's compilation :)
Still, having checked the Virginia Astley album, I thank you! Lovely stuff, esp. the latter half. Loved reading up on her, too

69 years old today

he's currently flooding Twitter with birthday wishes causing me to come to the realization that he is a strikingly handsome man, even today

nice

Bad news:

https://thequietus.com/articles/29458-ryuichi-sakamoto-diagnosed-bowel-cancer

Nooooooooooooooooooo :(

Oh man :(

ugh, hopefully he pulls through :(

Ah, fuck. :(

jesus, no

hoping the best for him. Takahashi had a brain tumor removed just a few months ago, as well. :(

its hard to gauge the tone of YT's social media posts, he seems optimistic but apparently he's not out of the woods yet

the one time I randomly catch an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuelFc2j1VM/

Heart does a flip again now when I see this thread bumped.

Me too :(

Then enjoy this instead, as he has the closing track

https://modernobscuremusic.bandcamp.com/album/prsnt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC5Ry5092Pk

now here's a powerful image

https://i.imgur.com/RtP0rpZ.png