Probably I have all inside," the maestro told SF Gate in 1997. "Some people think I'm film composer, some think I'm poppy musician, some think I'm avant-garde. The truth is probably somewhere in between. Or maybe, instead of any artistic exhaustion, the album's approach was intended more to capitalize on a piece of music called "energy flow," of which he composed 30 seconds for a commercial before it became an unlikely chart success, leading him to extend its run time to 4:33 on BTTB. Even BTTB's song lengths, which generally hover around four minutes, illustrate a desire to reorient, experiment and rediscover. With Discord - which is unavailable digitally - Sakamoto channeled his deep distress over Africa's dire sociopolitical climate into four movements: "Grief," "Anger," "Prayer" and "Salvation." It's clear that Sakamoto put all of his emotional and creative energy into crafting Discord's dense, impassioned compositions having completed it, the magnetic pull of a silent room and a single piano seems self-evident. Ryuichi Sakamoto (2016) Incident / Trust / Darkroom Forgiveness The Site Rage Confusion Investigation: Incident. Ryuichi Sakamoto Neo Geo (1987) Neo Geo / Okinawa Song - Chin Nuku Juushii Parata Shogunade: Neo Geo / Okinawa Song - Chin Nuku Juushii Parata Shogunade: 10: 10. The Yellow Magic Orchestra song "tong poo" is reinterpreted, shifting from a bass-heavy montage of wacky synth work into a frenetic, virtuosic performance.Ĭonsidering BTTB in the context of Sakamoto's previous album, a torrential orchestral suite compiled under the name Discord in 1997, is maybe helpful in understanding the dramatic serenity of its follow-up. Wind, Rain and Water The Last Emperor (Theme Variation II) 9: 9. Elsewhere, Sakamoto's experimental urges are irrepressible: "do bacteria sleep?" is a trippy, synthy jaw-harp excursion, while "uetax" is a composition written in prayerful water.
Rice comments on the time taken between releases: 'Sometimes you have to step away from what you love in order to learn how to love it again. The standouts among BTTB's 18 tracks - "lorenz and watson," "chanson," "aqua" and "reversing" in particular - all pensively saunter and toy with negative space as pronounced as any of the piano's notes, with the distinct feeling of a master in a mode of deep play with his first instrument. With Rick Rubin aiding in the production of My Favourite Faded Fantasy, Damien Rices follow-up to 2002s multi-million selling 'O' and 2006s '9' contains the single 'I Dont Want To Change You'. Elsewhere on async you'll hear the soothing pitter-patter of rain falling outside Sakamoto's home, and the keys of a piano from a high school in Natori, Japan, which was badly damaged.
It's hard, having heard BTTB and read Murakami's ruminative deployment of it, to imagine the record accompanying any other scene. There's an elegant song called 'Walker' on async, Ryuichi Sakamoto's new album, whose centrepiece is the sound of footsteps crunching against leaves in a forest. In the liner notes that accompany BTTB's reissue, novelist and music obsessive Haruki Murakami writes that he listens to the album alone, during his early-morning routine, while preparing to work.