Whether it’s his albums with Yellow Magic Orchestra or the film scores which won him award after award, there are plenty of must-have recordings by the legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Here, we name some of the best recordings of Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Best Ryuichi Sakamoto recordings
Solid State Survivor (1979)
You can’t do a round-up of Sakamoto recordings without tipping a hat to the Yellow Magic Orchestra, the pioneering Japanese electronic trio of which Sakamoto was a member. Solid State Survivor is the group’s second album and is one of the most important records they produced. It is highly futuristic in style and approach, reworking Japanese classical music with synthesizers and samples. It’s paired with sci-fi lyrics, which bring to mind the cyberpunk movement that was being explored in fiction and other forms of culture at the time.
Listen out for ‘Rydeen’ and ‘Technopolis’, two of the biggest and best loved tracks on the album. You might also recognise the final track, ‘Solid State Survivor’, which was later reworked by Michael Jackson. He changed the lyrics for inclusion on his classic album, Thriller.
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983)
As well as writing the score to this classic film, Sakamoto also appeared on screen, portraying the complex Captain Yonoi alongside David Bowie as Major Jack Celliers and Tom Conti as Lieutenant Colonel John Lawrence.
The score is a masterpiece of early electronic music, blending classical and Japanese influences as it brilliantly conveys the stifling heat and oppression of the prisoner-of-war camp.
It deservedly won Sakamoto a BAFTA for Best Original Score in 1983.
async (2017)
async was the first solo album Sakamoto released after being diagnosed with cancer for the first time in 2014 – and the first solo album he had released in eight years since Out of Noise in 2009. It’s a playful album, combining field recordings of city streets with samples of people doing readings. Sakamoto blends these with a mix of acoustic and electronic instruments and synthesized sounds. There are triangles, glass and a piano drowned in tsunami water.
Sakamoto later released async remodels, a set of eleven reconstructions of the tracks from the original async album by producers including fellow film composer Jóhann Jóhannsson and Yves Tumor.
Minamata (2021)
Andrew Levitas’s 2020 biopic Minamata tells the story of war photographer W Eugene Smith. He travels back to Japan to document the devastating effect of mercury poisoning on the coastal communities there. Sakamoto’s score ‘finds the iconic artist doing what he does best,’ writes BBC Music Magazine reviews editor Michael Beek. ‘Like Hans Zimmer, Sakamoto is a genius at creating engaging soundworlds with multi-layered emotion.
‘Sakamoto develops a deceptively simple and starkly emotional main theme that really gets under your skin,’ Beek continues. ‘The on-screen action is treated to a resonant patelle of piano, strings, electronics and solo vocals.’
Crystalline (2023)
Sakamoto was one of the great collaborators of the 20th and 21st centuries, working with the great and the good of the film and music worlds. He created this 2023 EP in collaboration with Alex Heffes, with whom he had previously produced the album Face to Face. Heffes had unearthed these previously unreleased piano duos from his archives after Sakamoto died in 2023. As a result, there’s a poignancy to the album – but it’s also a touching tribute to a musical collaboration between friends.
12 (2023)
12 was the 15th and final solo studio album Sakamoto produced before his death in 2023. This minimalist electronic offering is much more stripped-back than many of his previous works. You can even hear the composer breathing over his sparse piano playing. Sakamoto wrote this collection during lockdown while he was in rehab following an operation.
‘An expanse of ethereal electronica opens the album; there are several minutes of what feels like white noise before the piano begins its slow, methodical plod,’ writes BBC Music Magazine critic Claire Jackson. ‘It’s strangely comforting, like a Rothko or Yves Klein painting; the minimalism inspired by the purity of Feldman or Cage, rather than the pop style that infuses later tracks.’
These are like diary entries: a final personal note from composer to audiences. Definitely a must-have recording for any Sakamoto fan.
Read our review of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s album 12 here.