My music very rarely contains vocals or lyrics, leaving it to the listener to fill in the meaning. Speaking to us over email, Sakamoto expanded on the vision which drove this companion release, “Since early on while making async I felt it had a very strong cinematic quality, in that the music could be interpreted or framed in a number of ways. Below, we caught up with the pioneer to talk us through every reinterpretation and the personal response the new works engendered. Enlisting a number of frequent collaborators, such as Alva Noto, Oneohtrix Point Never and Arca for remix duties, each track on Sakamoto’s latest album has been given a unique, new spin. Last year, he released his first solo album in eight years, entitled async. The follow-up to 2009’s Out of Noise was his first full-length since his recovery from throat cancer, and the restorative ambient masterpiece saw Sakamoto delve into ideas of the briefness of life, death and acceptance. His most recent work being for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, a score that was written in collaboration with Alva Noto.
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Of course, it’s his work within that other cinematic field that has earned Sakamoto numerous accolades and several BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations – the field of film music. Once part of the influential Japanese electropop act Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto has gone on to become a renowned solo artist, composer and even actor – memorably starring alongside David Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
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Over the last four decades, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s name has come to command respect and adulation across film and music.