Sundaze 1529

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Today a 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.   .... N'joy

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Ryuichi Sakamoto (born January 17, 1952 in Tokyo, Japan) studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he graduated with a BA in composition, and a Master's degree with special emphasis electronic and ethnic music. Sakamoto began his career in the late 1970s, working as a composer, arranger and producer with some of Japan's most popular rock, jazz and classical artists. He released his first solo album in 1978 but came to fame as a member of Japanese synth-rock outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra with co-founders Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. He collaborated with David Sylvian on a number of singles and most of Sylvian's albums.

 He appeared in the 1983 Nagisa Oshima film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence alongside British rock singer David Bowie; he also wrote the film's musical score. He won the Academy Award for his score to the 1987 Bernardo Bertolucci film The Last Emperor, and has also won two Golden Globe Awards for his work as a film composer.In addition, he also composed music for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics opening ceremony. In the early 1990s, he briefly reunited with YMO, playing an instrumental role in the techno and acid house movements of the era, before parting ways again shortly afterwards.

 His 1999 musical composition "Energy Flow", also known as the alternative title of the single disc Ura BTTB, was the first number-one instrumental single in Japan's Oricon charts history. He has also occasionally worked on anime and video games, as a composer as well as a scenario writer. In the late 2000s, he reunited once again with YMO, while continuing to compose film music.

Since 78 he has released almost 90 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. The 2007 jpg shows a 55 year old man that has greyed considerably, but he looks sharp and balanced into the lens back at you.

 He is also known as a critic of copyright law, arguing that it is antiquated in the information age. He is a member of anti-nuclear organization Stop Rokkasho. 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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The compilation album, "Soundbytes" contains pieces from Japanese releases including "Ongakku Zuukan" or "Illustrated Music Encyclopedia", "Mirai Yarou" or "Future Dude" (loose translation), "Wings of Honneamise," and others. The tracks from "Future Dude" all deal with Futurism and the movement created in Italy in the 1900's. They contain Italian influences, such as opera music, a speech by Filippo T Marinetti, and mechanical aspects of rhythm such as typewriter clicks, metallic pounding, and pulsating beats like that of an assembly line. All of these help to incorporate the feeling and emotion of the Futurist movement, as well as paint a picture of motion and speed and the mechanical automation of which the Futurists dreames.
Other tracks like M.A.Y. in the backyard are vibrant and individual, fast paced and s! tacatto, with repetitive but complex rhythms. Some tracks are less stressful, like Ulu Watu and Water is Life, with soothing sounds of rain, jungle animals, and Indonesian Gamelan, all helping to create a green jungle feeling. Wonderful compilation of Sakamoto's early eighties work.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Soundbytes (81–86) (flac 292mb)

01 Bakterial Soup 8:55
02 Relaxed 7:00
03 Soundscape 4:35
04 E. Scape 5:01
05 Elektrical Utility 3:55
06 Elektrical Aktivity 6:59
07 Puzzling Cubes 5:51
08 Worms Are Boring 4:49
09 Carbon Cycle 4:35
10 Dark Life Cycle 5:04
11 Receptor 7:10
12 Fry A Fly 9:58

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One of Sakamoto's strangest, most uncompromising albums, Esperanto features music written for a dance performance by New Yorker Melissa Fenley. Using weird, clipped samples of ethnic instruments, electronically modified sound bites, and distorted vocals, Sakamoto builds a very icy soundscape that juts out at the listener like pointy modernist architecture. Leaving lots of breathing space in the arrangements for the dancers, this is music that stretches langorously over rhythms and snatches of melody. "Dolphins" is bright and shiny with its synth bursts and backwards notes; "Adelic Penguins" is the closest Sakamoto gets to techno here, with bits and bops of a melody exploding over a propulsive bassline. A far cry from the more symphonic Sakamoto, but equally intriguing.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Esperanto (flac 180mb)

01 A Wongga Dance Song 6:18
02 The Dreaming 3:52
03 A Rain Song 2:26
04 Dolphins 3:23
05 A Human Tube 4:50
06 Adelic Penguins 6:06
07 A Carved Stone 8:23
08 Ulu Watu 3:55

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Sakamoto's all-star blend of Western and Eastern music styles is a triumphant success for the composer, and a consistently good listen. On the title track he takes a traditional Japanese folk song and blends it into a funk groove provided by Bootsy Collins, Bill Laswell, and Sly Dunbar. Unlike Byrne and Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, this blend of cultures is coming from the opposing angle and stays truer to the source material. But that track is only one of Sakamoto's approaches, and on several other tracks he joins with Laswell to create a crisp, techno-cultural hybrid that sounds like nothing except like pure Sakamoto. On "Risky," a subdued Iggy Pop lends vocals and lyrics, and doesn't come across as an interloper. And on "Okinawa Song," Sakamoto seamlessly integrates the southern island culture into his grand scheme.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Neo Geo  (flac 202mb)

01 Before Long 1:19
02 Neo Geo 5:08
03 Risky (Voc.Iggy Pop) 5:27
04 Free Trading 5:25
05 Shogunade 4:32
06 Parata 4:21
07 Okinawa Song - Chin Nuku Juushii 5:19
08 After All 3:07


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