Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一
Sakamoto Ryūichi, born January 17, 1952,
Nakano, Tokyo, Japan) is an
Academy Awards-winning, Grammy-winning,
Golden Globe-winning Japanese musician, composer, producer and
actor, based in New York and Tokyo.
Biography
Early years and Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto attended the Tokyo National University of Fine
Arts and Music, where he earned a B.A. in music composition and an M.A. with special emphasis on both electronic and
ethnic music.
After working as a session musician, he formed the internationally successful Japanese synth techno trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. The band charted a
British top 20 hit with "Firecracker" in the late 1970s (along with other favorites "Technopolis"
and "Behind the Mask"), and was a seminal influence on the acid house and techno movements of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Solo career
Sakamoto released his first solo album in 1978, which included the songs "Thousand Knives" and
"The End of Asia".
Following the disbanding of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto released a number of solo albums in the 1980s. While primarily
focused on the piano and synthesizer, this series of albums boasted a roster of collaborators that included David Sylvian, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Nam June Paik, and Iggy
Pop, among others. Sakamoto would alternate between exploring a variety of musical styles, ideas, and genres - captured
most notably in his groundbreaking 1983 album Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia - and
focusing on a specific subject or theme, such as the Italian Futurism movement in
Futurista (1986). At times, Sakamoto would also present varying interpretations of
technology's intersection with music: he would present some pieces, such as "Replica", with Kraftwerkian rigidity and order, while he would infuse humanity and humor into others - "Broadway Boogie
Woogie", for example, liberally lifts samples from Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner, pairing them against a raucous, sax-driven techno-pop backdrop.
As his solo career began to extend outside Japan in the late 1980s, Sakamoto's explorations, influences, and collaborators
followed suit. Beauty (1989) boasted a tracklist that combined pop and traditional Japanese and Okinawan songs, yet
featured guest appearances by Jill Jones, Brian Wilson,
and Robbie Robertson. Heartbeat (1991) and
Sweet Revenge (1994), meanwhile, looked to international horizons and drew from a global
range of artists such as Dee Dee Brave, French rapper Marco
Prince, Arto Lindsay, Youssou N'Dour,
David Sylvian, and Ingrid Chavez. 1996 saw the appearance of two notable albums: Smoochy, which fused pop and electronica with
bossanova and other South American forms, and 1996, which featured a number of
previously released pieces arranged for solo piano, accompanied with violin and cello.
Following 1996, Sakamoto simultaneously delved into the classical and "post-techno" genres with Discord
(1998), an hour-long orchestral work in four parts. Here he evoked the melodic qualities of his
film score work, imbued with the influence of 20th century classical composers and spoken word. The Sony Classical release also featured an interactive CD-ROM
component and website that complemented the work. Shortly thereafter, the Ninja Tune record
label released a series of remixes of various sections, produced by a number of prominent electronica artists, including
Amon Tobin, Talvin Singh and DJ Spooky.
The next album, BTTB (1998) - an acronym
for "Back to the Basics" - was a fairly opaque reaction to the prior year's multilayered, lushly orchestrated Discord. The
album comprised of a series of original pieces on solo piano, including "Energy Flow" (a minor hit in Japan) and a frenetic,
4-hand arrangement of the Yellow Magic Orchestra classic "Tong Poo".
Sakamoto later teamed with cellist Jaques Morelenbaum (a member of his 1996 trio), and
Morelenbaum's wife, Paula, on a pair of albums celebrating the work of jazz pioneer
Antonio Carlos Jobim. They recorded their first album, Casa
(2001), mostly in Jobim's home studio in Rio de Janeiro,
with Sakamoto performing on the late Jobim's grand piano. The album was well received, having been included in the list of
New York Times's top albums of 2002.
Recently, Sakamoto collaborated with Alva Noto (an alias of Carsten Nicolai) to release Vrioon, an album of Sakamoto's piano clusters treated by Nicolai's
unique style of digital manipulation, involving the creation of "micro-loops" and minimal percussion. The two produced this work
by passing the pieces back and forth until both were satisfied with the result. This debut, released on German label
Raster-Noton, was voted record of the year 2004 in the
electronica category by British magazine The Wire. They later released Insen
(2005) - while produced in a similar manner to Vrioon, this album is somewhat more restrained and
minimalist. The method of composition remains highly mathematical, influenced by Olivier
Messiaen and Iannis Xenakis, using graph
theory and mathematical logic.
Meanwhile, Sakamoto continues to craft music to suit any context: in 2005, Finnish mobile
phone manufacturer Nokia hired Sakamoto to compose ring and alert tones for their high-end phone,
the Nokia 8800.
Film composer and actor
Moviegoers may recognize Sakamoto primarily through his score work on two films: Nagisa
Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987), the latter of which earned him the
Academy Award with fellow composers David
Byrne and Cong Su.
Frequent collaborator David Sylvian contributed lead vocals to "Forbidden Colours" - the main theme to Merry Christmas Mr.
Lawrence - which became a minor hit. Sixteen years later, the piece resurfaced as a popular dance track called "Heart of
Asia" (by the group Watergate).
Other films scored by Sakamoto include Pedro Almodóvar's Tacones lejanos (1992); Bertolucci's The Little Buddha (1993); Oliver
Stone's Wild Palms (1993); John Maybury's
Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis
Bacon (1998); Brian De Palma's
Snake Eyes (1998) and Femme Fatale (2002), and Oshima's Gohatto (1999). He also composed the score of the opening ceremony
for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, telecast live to an audience of over a billion viewers.
Several tracks from Sakamoto's earlier solo albums have also appeared in film soundtracks. In particular, variations of
"Chinsagu No Hana" (from Beauty) and "Bibo No Aozora" (from 1996) provide the poignant closing pieces for Sue
Brooks's Japanese Story (2003) and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel
(2006), respectively.
Sakamoto has also acted in several films: perhaps his most notable performance was as the conflicted Captain Yonoi in Merry
Christmas Mr Lawrence, alongside Takeshi Kitano and British rock singer David Bowie. He also played small roles in
The Last Emperor and Madonna's "Rain" music video.
Selected discography
Solo
- Thousand Knives (1978)
- Summer Nerves (1979)
- B2-Unit (1980)
- Left-Handed Dream (1981)
- Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia (1986)
- Esperanto (1985)
- Futurista (1986)
- Coda (1986)
- Neo Geo (1987)
- Tokyo Joe (1988)
- Beauty (1990)
- Heartbeat (1991)
- Sweet Revenge (1994)
- Smoochy (1995)
- 1996 (1996)
- Discord (1997)
- BTTB (1998)
- Cinemage (1999)
- Intimate (1999, with Keizo Inoue)
- L I F E (2000)
- Zero Landmine (2001)
- Comica (2002)
- Elephantism (2002)
- Love (2003)
- Vrioon (2003, with Alva Noto)
- World Citizen (2003, with David Sylvian)
- Derrida (2003)
- Chasm (2004)
- Moto.tronic (2003, Compilation of tracks recorded between 1983 & 2003)
- Insen (2005, with Alva Noto)
- Sala Santa Cecilia (2005, live EP with Fennesz)
- Cantus omnibus unus; for mixed or equal choir (2005)
- Bricolages (2006)
- Cendre (2007, with Fennesz)
- Ocean Fire (2007, with Willits)
As Morelenbaum2/Sakamoto
- Casa (2001)
- A Day in New York (2003)
Film and event scores
- Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
- Ôritsu uchûgun Oneamisu no tsubasa - Royal Air Force (Wings of Honnéamise) (1987)
- The Last Emperor (1988)
- The Sheltering Sky (1990)
- The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
- High Heels (1992)
- Wuthering Heights (1992)
- El Mar Mediterrani - Barcelona Olympics opening ceremony (1992)
- Wild Palms (1993)
- Little Buddha (1993)
- Stalker (1997)
- Snake Eyes (1998)
- Love Is The Devil (1998)
- Gohatto (1999)
- Lack of Love - Dreamcast Game (2000)
- Minha Vida Como Un Filme (2002)
- Femme Fatale (2002)
- Shining Boy & Little Randy (2005)
- Tony Takitani (2005)
- Silk (2007)
Personal life
Sakamoto was married to Japanese pianist and singer Akiko Yano: he collaborated with her
on some of her recordings, and she was also a regular touring member of Yellow Magic Orchestra. They finally divorced in
August 2006, 14 years after a mutual decision to live separately. They had one daughter,
j-pop singer Miu Sakamoto.
In 1998, Italian ethnomusicologist Massimo Milano
published Ryuichi Sakamoto. Conversazioni, a collection of essays
and conversations.
He is also known as a critic of copyright law, arguing that it is antiquated in the
information age.
External links
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