This is not a snobbish, underhanded accusation of some perceived lack of culture either; the Japanese music scene is and has been notoriously insular and has been that way even during Japan's economic golden age during the 70's and 80's and even when it did open up somewhat to the world in the 2000's, the Japanese music that did garner some attention overseas was bright, poppy music related to Japanese kawaii culture and its popularity was largely confined to a rather small subculture of Japan enthusiasts. However, even if his name means nothing to you and you have no experience whatsoever with Japanese music, you are most likely familiar with his music in some form or the other, because he is more influential than his relative obscurity (at least for us stupid foreigners) might imply.
The Man
Ryuichi Sakamoto was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1952 and is widely known in his home country as being an innovator and visionary in the field of electronic music and has throughout his active career collaborated with and produced for many well-known names in the Japanese musical scene, including his former wife Akiko Yano.
Ryuichi Sakamoto - picture from Wikipedia
Besides his early work with Yellow Magic Orchestra, Japan's counterpart to Germany's Kraftwerk and a prolific solo career, composed several soundtracks for a handful of internationally acclaimed movies such as Bernando Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, for which he won an Oscar and even starred in the war film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (for which he also wrote several scores, including the title theme) together with none other than David Bowie. Mr. Sakamoto is also a known anti-nuclear activist and an outspoken critic of copyright law and is working actively to change the oligolopolistic nature of the music scene in his home country of Japan.
The Music
Mr. Sakamoto's musical career is a multifaceted one that spans several decades. As a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra(YMO), a band that is considered by many to be one of the pioneers of popular electronic music, he helped shape a lighter, more upbeat sound that is considered by many to be one of the pioneers of popular electronic music, he helped shape a lighter, mo to gain some international attention and that was distinct from the harder, more robotic sound adopted by their contemporaries like Kraftwerk. A good introduction to the YMO sound would be the 1979 live concert at The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles which features a young, energetic Sakamoto on keyboards with particular emphasis on the dance-worthy Cosmic Surfin' and the jazzy, groovy 1000 knives
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Solid State Survivor album cover - picture from Discogs
With the international surge in popularity of Japanese city pop led by the Plastic Love phenomenon, several of Sakamoto's contributions as a song writer and producer for other artists are also becoming more well-known internationally. He produced Mai Iijima's debut album Rosé in 1983 and wrote the arrangement for several songs on Taeko Ohnuki's 1978 alum Mignonne including the track 4 A.M, another city pop song that Youtube's algorithm helped popularize.
The movie scores are probably where most foreigners have had the exposure to Mr. Sakamoto's music. The title theme for The Last Emperor is with orchestral backing one of the most grandiose and melancholic pieces of movie music out there and the brutality of war reflected in the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is in turn perfectly reflected in its title theme, when Mr. Sakamoto plays this beautiful piece unplugged with his trio.
The perhaps least known part of Ryuichi Sakamoto's career is his solo work, which is not surprising. The liner notes from his latest album Async reads in part:
(...) I decided that the concept of of my new album would be 'a soundtrack for an Andrei Tarkovsky film that does not exist'. As I thought about the scenes from his 7 films that have been embedded in my memory so deeply. I began assembling sound - of my walk in the woods, raindrops in my garden, scratches of a shamisen. And Arseny Tarkovsky's poetry read by my own good friend David Sylvian.
This should give you some idea about what music Ryuichi Sakamoto makes on his own: Intellectual, atmospheric, brooding and ambient soundscapes that are not very accessible for the mainstream listener. Async definitely lives up to this description with pieces of a hazy, almost alien beauty like Andata and Solaris followed by strangely structured and almost amelodic compositions like ZURE that feels like they belong in a (Andrei Tarkovsky) film or as the musical backdrop of a high-brow art installation.
Async album cover - picture from Juno Records
Despite his many accolades as both a composer of pioneering electronic music and sound tracks and his many collaborations with other musical giants, both domestically and internationally, Ryuichi Sakamoto's music is if nothing else an interesting and profound experience, that I hope to enjoy for many more years to come. Mr. Sakamoto's career is of such magnitude that it would take a manuscript spanning several volumes rather than a mere blog post to do it justice, but I hope you have enjoyed my little introduction to the works of Ryuichi Sakamoto nonetheless and I likewise hope to have inspired you to check out his music as well if you have not done so already!
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