His musical and career boundaries are decidedly on a map of his own making. Here is a musician who is also an actor, soundtrack composer, producer environmental activist, model, a prolific collaborator and who could release back-to-back albums of surreal, easy-listening inflected pop music next to a dissonant orchestral lament on famine. Such reactions are hardly surprising given Sakamoto’s expansive fan-base, accumulated through a vast discography and a 40-year career, which has covered innumerable styles and sought to actively defy genre-specifics. For some Sakamoto’s unconventional engagement with the piano was a sublime exercise in subtlety, texture and atmosphere, and for others a supposed “non-event”- alarming in its absence of the Satie-like melodies that are commonly expected of him.
Whilst adventurous music can often have a polarizing effect, the emails and feedback St John Sessions received following Ryuichi Sakamoto and Taylor Deupree’s performance at St John at Hackney church in February 2014 were amusingly pronounced. Sister M) (5:20)įrom the synth funk mastery of Yellow Magic Orchestra to minimal collaborations with Alva Noto, James Hammond unpicks ten milestones from the extraordinary career of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Main Theme (from 'Little Buddha') (2:54)ġ5.
