Emperor Sakamoto | The Press

For many people, the 1980s is all about popular artists Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Madonna. For me, it wasn’t quite that. The more left field they were, the more I was attracted to them.

If, in my group of friends, someone had the misfortune to mention an obscure label (Disques du Crépuscule in Belgium, for example) which worked with sharp, but nevertheless brilliant creators, we could move heaven and earth to put hand over one of these recordings.

Ah! That blessed time when you could still feel the effect of scarcity in your hands and ears.

My 1980s were marked with a hot iron by Klaus Nomi, Richenel, Anne Pigalle, Alison Moyet, The Stranglers, The Style Council, The Durutti Column, Cocteau Twins, Matt Bianco, Basia, Talking Heads, Vangelis, Trisomy 21 and so many others.

It was in this context that I discovered Ryūichi Sakamoto, a very high-level composer whose death we learned on Sunday (he really died on March 28). He was 71 years old and still so many works and emotion to offer to the public. It’s sad.

I spent my Sunday listening to him and repeating what a genius he was.

I was not, however, a big fan of his period with the Yellow Magic Orchestra in the 1970s and 1980s. Even if he established himself as a pioneer of techno by exploiting rhythmic electronic music, I always found the result a little corny. At times, we are not far from the theme of Grendizer. More marshmallow than that of Kraftwerk, not as catchy as that of Giorgio Moroder, less “Patrol of the cosmos” than that of Jean-Michel Jarre, this sound has aged badly.

For me, the real Ryūichi Sakamoto took shape when he started composing film music. And not the least. The Last Emperor by Bernardo BertolucciMerry Christmas Mr. Lawrence by Nagisa Oshima High heels by Pedro Almodóvar, Snake Eyes by Brian DePalma, Silk by François Girard and, more recently, Exception.

In Furyo (Merry Christmas Mr.Lawrence), Sakamoto becomes an actor, interpreting the role of a commander of a prison camp, located in Java, during the Second World War. The film subtly highlights the ambiguous relationship between this man and an English soldier played by David Bowie peroxide for the occasion.

It is for this film that Sakamoto composes music that will make him famous all over the planet. Forbidden Colors (which he records in a sung version with his friend David Sylvian) establishes an extraordinary bridge between East and West¹.

Sakamoto understood the qualities of good film music. Just listen to the piece Raintaken from last emperor, to feel all the evocative force of the work. The images are sublimated².

Sakamoto worked a lot with David Sylvian, but also with Brian Eno, David Byrne and Iggy Pop, as well to say the crème de la crème of composers of the 1980s and 1990s whose names have not finished resounding.

This composer, pianist and conductor has often repeated that he had two great inspirations: Debussy and the Beatles. Extremely prolific artist (a dozen records with the Yellow Light Orchestra, thirty solo, a dozen recorded live and sixty film scores), he leaves an impressive discography rarely seen in a creator.

There is a Sakamoto sound, but not a way. He knew how to avoid molds, moving briskly from electro to rap, from house to bossa-nova. Sakamoto did not remain a prisoner of the 1980s, he knew how to get out of it, he experimented, he grew up to become the master he was.

If you are seduced by the new pianistic wave that is current at the moment (Alexandra Stréliski, Jean-Michel Blais), I invite you to listen Playing the Piano 12122020 where he resumes several of his compositions, alone with his favorite instrument. You will only hear beauty there.

He was the best-known Japanese composer in the world, even though he had long since moved to the United States. He was a man of challenges. Intellectual, he certainly was. But he didn’t take himself seriously. When Nokia asked him to compose the ringtones for his 8800 telephone, he agreed to do so for his greatest pleasure.

Sakamoto knew he was going to die. Despite this, he had found the strength to create an ultimate record, launched last January and simply named 12. The pieces he has composed are of a moving interiority. We guess that the exercise must have been highly therapeutic.

His favorite epitaph was “Ars longa, vita brevis” (“art is long, life is short”). He was right.

In 2014, three years after the tsunami and the Fukushima disaster, this environmental and anti-nuclear activist discovered a ravaged piano in the rubble of a city. The documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda shows images of the attachment that the musician develops for this bruised instrument³.

With unfailing determination, Sakamoto sets out to bring it back to life. He had just learned that he had cancer.

Art is longer than life, indeed.