Aug 23, 2015

Sundaze 1534

Hello,  lot's of sports this weekend a F1 race in that classic circuit, Spa..Rain predicted, could become a race of attrition.. Then there's Athletics championship from Being, The Vuelta started today with a crazy timetrail too crazy to race on. The Tour of Spain starts sunday then...

More today from that Japanese musician, activist, composer, record producer, writer, singer, pianist, and actor based in Tokyo and New York. Gaining major success in 1978 as a member of the electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto served on keyboards and sometimes vocals. He concurrently pursued a solo career, if ever anyone painted pictures with sound, Ryuichi Sakamoto supercedes them all. That said he does like to collaborate with 'brothers' of the same mindset a selection of these is here to.... N'joy

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Sakamoto entered the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1970, earning a B.A. in music composition and an M.A. with special emphasis on both electronic and ethnic music. He studied ethnomusicology there with the intention of becoming a researcher in the field, due to his interest in various world music traditions, particularly the Japanese (especially Okinawan), Indian and African musical traditions. He was also trained in classical music and began experimenting with the electronic music equipment available at the university, including synthesizers such as the Buchla, Moog, and ARP. One of Sakamoto's classical influences was Claude Debussy, who he described as his "hero" and stated that “Asian music heavily influenced Debussy, and Debussy heavily influenced me. So, the music goes around the world and comes full circle.”

After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, The group's work has had a lasting influence across genres, ranging from hip hop and techno to acid house and general melodic music. Sakamoto was the songwriter and composer for a number of the band's hit songs—including "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)" (1978), "Technopolis" (1979), "Nice Age" (1980), "Ongaku" (1983) and "You've Got to Help Yourself" (1983). He also sang on several songs, such as "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" (1983). .

Sakamoto released his first solo album Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto in mid-1978 with the help of Hideki Matsutake—Hosono also contributed to the song "Thousand Knives". The album experimented with different styles, such as "Thousand Knives" and "The End of Asia"—in which electronic music was fused with traditional Japanese music—while "Grasshoppers" is a more minimalistic piano song. The album was recorded from April to July 1978 with a variety of electronic musical instruments, including various synthesizers, such as the KORG PS-3100, a polyphonic synthesizer; the Oberheim Eight-Voice; the Moog III-C; the Polymoog, the Minimoog; the Micromoog; the Korg VC-10, which is a vocoder; the KORG SQ-10, which is an analog sequencer; the Syn-Drums, an electronic drum kit; and the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer, which is a music sequencer that was programmed by Matsutake and played by Sakamoto.

In 1980 Sakamoto released the solo album B-2 Unit, which has been referred to as his "edgiest" record and is known for the electronic
song "Riot in Lagos", which is considered an early example of electro music (electro-funk).The 1980 release of "Riot in Lagos" was listed by The Guardian in 2011 as one of the 50 key events in the history of dance music. Also in 1980, Sakamoto released the single "War Head/Lexington Queen", an experimental synthpop and electro record, and began a long-standing collaboration with David Sylvian, when he co-wrote and performed on the Japan track "Taking Islands In Africa". In 1982, Sakamoto worked on another collaboration with Sylvian, a single entitled "Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music".

Sakamoto released a number of solo albums during the 1980s. While primarily focused on the piano and synthesizer, this series of albums included collaborations with artists such as Sylvian, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Nam June Paik and Iggy Pop. Sakamoto would alternate between exploring a variety of musical styles, ideas and genres—captured most notably in his 1983 album Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia—and focusing on a specific subject or theme, such as the Italian Futurism movement in Futurista (1986). As his solo career began to extend outside Japan in the late 1980s, Sakamoto's explorations, influences and collaborators also developed further. Beauty (1989) features a tracklist that combines pop with traditional Japanese and Okinawan songs, as well as guest appearances by Jill Jones, Robert Wyatt, Brian Wilson and Robbie Robertson. Heartbeat (1991) and Sweet Revenge (1994) features Sakamoto's collaborations with a global range of artists.

In 1995 Sakamoto released Smoochy, described by the Sound On Sound website as Sakamoto's "excursion into the land of easy-listening and Latin", followed by the 1996 album, which featured a number of previously released pieces arranged for solo piano, violin and cello. During the December of 1996 Sakamoto, composed the entirety of an hour-long orchestral work entitled "Untitled 01" and released as the album Discord (1998). the recording was condensed from nine live performances of the work, recorded during a Japanese tour. Discord was divided into four parts: "Grief", "Anger", "Prayer" and "Salvation"; Sakamoto explained in 1998 that he was "not religious, but maybe spiritual" and "The Prayer is to anybody or anything you want to name." . Sakamoto's 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 a series of original pieces on solo piano, including "Energy Flow" (a major hit in Japan) and a frenetic, four-hand arrangement of the Yellow Magic Orchestra classic "Tong Poo".

1999 saw the long-awaited release of Sakamoto's "opera" LIFE. It premiered with seven sold-out performances in Tokyo and Osaka. This ambitious multi-genre multi-media project featured contributions by over 100 performers, including Pina Bausch, Bernardo Bertolucci, Josep Carreras, His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Salman Rushdie. Sakamoto 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 bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim. They recorded their first album, Casa (2001).

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 then released Insen (2005) – while produced in a similar manner to Vrioon, this album is somewhat more restrained and minimalist.

In 2005, Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia hired Sakamoto to compose ring and alert tones for their high-end phone, the Nokia 8800. A recent reunion with YMO pals Hosono and Takahashi also caused a stir in the Japanese press. They released a single "Rescue" in 2007 and a DVD "HAS/YMO" in 2008. On July 10, 2014, Sakamoto released a statement indicating that he had been diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer in late June of the same year. He announced a break from his work while he sought treatment and recovery. On August 3, 2015, Sakamoto posted on his website that he was "in great shape ... I am thinking about returning to work" and announced that he would be providing music for Yoji Yamada's Haha to Kuraseba (Living with My Mother).

Sakamoto is a member of the anti-nuclear organization Stop Rokkasho and has demanded the closing of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant. In 2012, he organized the "No Nukes 2012" concert, which featured performances by 18 groups, including Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk. Sakamoto is also known as a critic of copyright law, arguing in 2009 that it is antiquated in the information age. He argued that in "the last 100 years, only a few organizations have dominated the music world and ripped off both fans and creators" and that "with the internet we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music."

In 2006 Sakamoto, in collaboration with Japan's largest independent music company Avex Group, founded Commmons, a record label seeking to change the manner in which music is produced. Sakamoto has explained that Commmons is not his label, but is a platform for all aspiring artists to join as equal collaborators, to share the benefits of the music industry. On the initiative's "About" page, the label is described as a project that "aims to find new possibilities for music, while making meaningful contribution to culture and society." The name "Commmons" is spelt with three "m"s because the third "m" stands for music. From 2013 until now 5 albums have been releasesd 3 with Nobuyuki Nakajima and 2 with Taylor Deupree

Since 78 Sakamoto has released almost 100 albums (solo & soundtrack) , on top of that 2 dozen collaboration albums and YMO 33 years 110+ albums , every 16 weeks an album for 33 years, amazing workethic, puts lots of artists to shame. Married life obviously suffered and he has been unattached for most of his career, still he has two daughters one of which has stepped into her parents career (mother=Akiko Yano), the J-pop singer Miu Sakamoto.

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If only homo sapiens could evolve beyond their tribal mentality. If only we could follow the sixth commandment and stop killing our own species. If only Christians could be free of the lunacy of the anti-Christian book of 'Revelation'. (Who allowed that paganist, divisive hallucination into the New Testament?!) If only we could all be World Citizens.... The two variations on Sylvian's lyrical theme of 'world citizen' are beautiful must-have songs for anyone who can see and dream beyond the madness.

An excellent collaboration, well written, arranged and produced and can be played over and over. Here a Russian Import with 10 tracks including older collaborations from these two artists. David Sylvian does an amazing job on this, for the listener. 'World Citizen', with its powerful lyrics and excellent melody, is a must have for all Sylvian and Sakamoto fans.



Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian - World Citizen (flac 397mb)

01 World Citizen (Short Version) 4:06
02 World Citizen - I Won't Be Disappointed (Short Version) 4:08
03 World Citizen (Long Version) 6:43
04 World Citizen - I Won't Be Disappointed (Long Version) 6:17
05 World Citizen (Ryoji Ikeda Remix) 4:59
Bonus Tracks
06 Forbidden Colours 4:49
07 The Scent Of Magnolia 5:36
08 Heartbeat (Tainai Kaiki II) 5:17
09 Ride (David Sylvian) 8:00
10 The Boy With The Gun (David Sylvian) 5:15
SuperBonus Tracks
11 Bamboo Houses 5:28
12 Bamboo Music 5:40

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The title "Summvs" refers to the latin word "summa" (eng. sum) and "versus" (eng. towards) serving as a metaphor for the work being oriented towards a collaborative whole. Recorded at Onkio Haus (Tokyo, Japan), Victor Studio (Tokyo, Japan) and Hansa Studios (Berlin, Germany).

The duo's latest opus starts with 'Microon I', a minimalist, quasi-monotone sliding around in suspended notes, between majors and minors, with a central drone of thickened, molten notes that bring to mind Zadik Zechariah's Kurdish zorna melodies and the opaque patterns a piano tuner follows to righten the slippages of time-worn keys. The tracks that follow, like the 'Microon' trilogy, which serves as crucial punctuation to the album, lend it a sombre abstraction, with deep pulses, great expanses of filtered white noise and parsimonious, fragmentary piano and digital interference. Other tracks, such as 'By This River' and its counterpart 'By This River – Phantom', introduce something lighter, albeit as ever slowed down and deconstructed, a pair of erudite studies on the melodious, beat-driven strand of electronica. This last track unravels until it is returned, in its final stretches, to the radical, pared down landscape of the duo's first outing – 'Vrioon'. A barely perceptible yet unmistakable beat, single chords played with capacious reverb and impeccable precision – a simplicity of form that slows your very heartbeat as you listen, drawing you in as if into deepest slumber. This economy of means – though by now a familiar trademark of what happens when these two inimitable musicians join hands – remains astonishing and undiluted in its potency.



Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Summvs (flac 216mb)

01 Microon I 3:00
02 Reverso 6:57
03 Halo 7:10
04 Microon II 2:38
05 Pionier IOO 5:46
06 Ionoscan 4:08
07 By This River 4:08
08 Naono 11:20
09 Microon III 3:00
10 By This River - Phantom 8:03

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The third collaborative album from Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto, following on from 'Sala Santa Cecilia' and 'Cendre', in the canon of piano-based compositions from the Touch imprint.. The concept behind the album is fairly straightforward: on each night of a 24-date tour, Sakamoto wrote and performed a piano piece in a different key. By tour's end, he'd explored every possible tonal variation within Western notation. He provided these short, jewel-like solo piano melodies to Fennesz, who laid them in soft beds of gently caressing electronics. The results are very pretty...but they're not much more than that. Despite the key changes from track to track, the two discs retain a single mood from beginning to end. Each piece feels like it should be playing over the end credits of an indie filmn, it seems designed to hover in the background.



Fennesz & Sakamoto - Flumina I+II  (flac 558mb)

101 0318 4:27
102 0319 5:40
103 0320 4:43
104 0322 5:35
105 0324 6:49
106 0325 4:20
107 0327 5:30
108 0328 5:30
109 0330 4:44
110 0401 4:55
111 0402 6:15
112 0404 4:34

201 0405 4:51
202 0407 4:38
203 0409 4:53
204 0411 5:23
205 0415 5:14
206 0417 3:44
207 0419 5:00
208 0423 5:17
209 0424 4:28
210 0425 6:56
211 0428 4:55
212 0429 5:58

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello - would appreciate a reupload. thank you!

Anonymous said...

would it be possible to have a reup here on these nice music albums? many thanks in advance.