Pioneer

Celebrating Ryuichi Sakamoto 坂本龍, 17th January 1952 to 28th March 2023.

 

I was born in 1970 so it's little surprise that my entry point to Sakamoto's music wasn't Yellow Magic Orchestra but Japan, although I wasn't particularly aware of it at the time, and the follow up singles Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music and Forbidden Colours with David Sylvian.

 

My brother had a giant poster of Japan on his bedroom wall, featuring honorary band member Masami Tsuchiya and I appreciated the beautiful synchronicity of a band called Japan having a Japanese musician in their line up. It was probably from reading my brother's copies of Smash Hits (delivered every week by the paper boy) that I read that Ryuichi Sakamoto had performed with Japan on their Sons Of Pioneers tour in 1982.

 

That seemed the natural starting point for this selection, which I've wrestled with since news on Sunday of Sakamoto's inevitable and heartbreaking passing, following a long battle with cancer. One of my favourite Japan songs, Taking Islands In Africa, from 1980's Gentlemen Take Polaroids, is credited to Sakamoto and David Sylvian and features Ryuichi on keyboards. In researching this post, I came across a fascinating post by David J Nibloe on his Vista blog which reveals some of the deeper story behind the Sakamoto's meeting with Japan and the recording of the song.

I've skipped the aforementioned Sakamoto/Sylvian collaborations as they both appeared on my recent David Sylvian selection (which I've made available again via a link below), but the two worked together many many times over the subsequent years and decades. I've picked Midnight Sun, arguably a lesser known, bluesy track from Sylvian's 1999 album Dead Bees On A Cake, featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto and Marc Ribot. 

 

The main, instrumental theme from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, in it's vocal version better known as Forbidden Colours, also makes an appearance alongside The Last Emperor. I was incredibly moved by both films when I first watched them, not just for the striking visual narrative but also Ryuichi Sakamoto's soundtrack which is a character and voice in it's own right. I've barely dipped into his film composition work outside of these two but it's incredible to think that Sakamoto was creating something on the scale and power of The Last Emperor in 1987 whilst also releasing the poppier Risky with Iggy Pop. 

 

Ryuichi Sakamoto's capacity to ignore boundaries, to blend genres and create new ones, has been a constant source of fascination even if I've only intermittently followed his career. I draw parallels with John Cale, who to me has similarly pursued a desire to explore new paths, different ways of (musical) expression and artists to collaborate with.

So this selection ended up not being a straightforward Ryuichi Sakamoto selection at all, including not just his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra and as a solo artist but also his remixes, co-writes and appearances on other people's songs. This is how I discovered his wider body of work and it felt appropriate to try to capture that feeling across a mere 80 minutes. The original 'shortlist' was over two and a half hours, so some tough choices along the way.

 

Some of these songs will be familiar, though not necessarily in the versions presented here, there are frequent changes from upbeat to downtempo, quiet to loud, vocal to instrumental, pop to something harder to define.   

 

Having started with the band that first introduced me to Ryuichi Sakamoto, it seemed somehow fitting to close with a remix that he produced for his daughter Miu. Hard to believe that this alone is now 25 years old. Harder still to believe that Sakamoto-san has gone, but his vast musical legacy leaves much to discover and re-discover in the years to come.

 

Rest well, 坂本龍

 

1) Taking Islands In Africa (Album Version By John Punter): Japan (1980)

2) Fatalism (Ryuichi Sakamoto & Yukihiro Takahashi Remix): Massive Attack ft. Guy Garvey & Martina Topley-Bird (2010)

3) Rocket Factory: Sheena & The Rokkets ft. Yellow Magic Orchestra (1979)

4) Firecracker (Special DJ Copy): Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978)

5) Risky (Extended Mix By Julian Mendelsohn): Ryuichi Sakamoto ft. Iggy Pop (1987)

6) eena ferroix (Ryuichi Sakamoto Mix): CoH (2014)

7) The Last Emperor - Theme Variation 1: Ryuichi Sakamoto (1987)

8) Midnight Sun: David Sylvian ft. Ryuichi Sakamoto & Marc Ribot (1999)

9) Love & Hate (Message Mix - Single Edit): Ryuichi Sakamoto ft. Holly Johnson (1994)

10) Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence: Ryuichi Sakamoto (1983)

11) Behind The Mask (Remixed By Mark Gamble): YMO Versus The Human League (1993)

12) 0318: Fennesz + Sakamoto (2011)

13) Completion: Willits & Sakamoto (2012)

14) Drip Dry Eyes (Album Version): Sandii ft. Yellow Magic Orchestra (1980)

15) Field Work (Long Tokyo Mix): Ryuichi Sakamoto ft. Thomas Dolby (1985)

16) solari (Jóhann Jóhannsson Rework): Ryuichi Sakamoto (2017)

17) Awakening (Endo Mix By Ryuichi Sakamoto): Miu Sakamoto (1998)

Pioneer (1:21:28) (KF) (Mega)

If, like me, this leaves you wanting to hear more Ryuichi Sakamoto then you may be happy to know that I've re-posted a few of my previous Dubhed selections where he makes an appearance. 

 

David Sylvian: Nostalgia Burns (February 2023)

Mick Karn: KarnAge (January 2023)

Various: Big In Japan (March 2022)

Fourteen Years Of Silence

I listen to very little radio these days, so it was a YouTube trawl that landed me David Sylvian's audio diary, extracted from Mary Anne Hobbs' Spirit Of Sylvian special on her BBC Radio 6 Music show, first broadcast on 27th October.  

 

The full show runs to just under an hour, with a playlist including influencers and the influenced such as Yellow Magic Orchestra, Holger Czukay, Roxy Music, Burial, Savages, Goldie and Pa Salieu.

 

Raised On Radio has posted David's self-authored piece on YouTube and it's a compelling listen, 26 minutes spanning everything from his departure from Virgin at the end of the 20th century, the birth and death of his own label Samadhi Sounds, his collaborations, photography, looking back (and not looking back), Japan's legacy and a refreshing view on when and why artists wish to sample his work.

 

None of that begins to do it justice, give it a listen:

 

What immediately struck me is David Sylvian's voice. I have all of David's solo albums on Virgin, but I realise that the last album proper that I bought was 2005's The Good Son vs. The Only Daughter, itself a remix of 2003 album Blemish. His singing voice in that time was becoming richer, deeper, but that was twenty years ago.

It had been even longer since I'd heard David's speaking voice. What I remember best is the London accent from early 80s interviews when in Japan:

 

And I found this great clip of an interview with Gary Crowley in 1993, promoting his collaboration with Robert Fripp, The First Day. The voice is more refined but still recognisably David Sylvian.

 

At the end of his piece for Mary Anne Hobbs,. David apologises for his Mid-Atlantic accent, shaped by living in America for nearly three decades and "inevitable, but it would annoy the [bleep] out of me if I had to listen to it."

Yes, it was a bit of a shock at first but once David starts speaking, I found it impossible to stop listening. I'm on my third listen at the time of writing this post and each visit reveals another fascinating layer of insight that I missed the first time around. An essential listen, whether you're a David Sylvian fan or just have an interest in the inner workings of an artist.

It was a short hop from there to another YouTube gem, offering up 40 minutes of raw, in-the-studio footage of the Berlin recording sessions for David's first solo album, Brilliant Trees. Again, a must-see.

 

David's last solo album proper was 2009's Manafon but as mentioned in the BBC 6 Music audio, he collaborated with Franz Wright and Christian Fennesz on There's A Light That Enters Houses With No Other House In Sight, released in 2014. You can view an extract - Wintersleep - or listen to the full 64-minute album.

 

On 28th October, Twinkle³, released a new album, Upon This Fleeting Dream. I haven't yet heard anything other than the closing track of Side 1, If I leave No Trace, which features a spoken word contribution from David Sylvian, but it's an intriguing three-and-a-half minutes.

In the opening section of David's Spirit Of Sylvian audio piece, he reflected on whether accepting Mary Anne Hobbs' invitation was the right thing to do as he hadn't spoken to the media in 14 years, even longer for radio or TV. He closes by saying that he's "not going to listen back to what I have spoken to you about because I know if I do, I'll delete it [laughs]... this is inevitable."

What was perhaps also inevitable is that less than half an hour in David Sylvian's company has reignited my love and admiration for his artistic integrity and vision but also his ability to not take himself too seriously. I'm now digging back into my existing Japan and David Sylvian but also inspired to look forward to catching up with the solo records and collaborations that I've missed in the last thirty years.