RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
Tokyo’s synthesizer master talks humour, murder and David Bowie.
Japan’s electronic master on the joys of misunderstanding, memories of Bowie and causing a Riot In Lagos.
Ryuichi Sakamoto has always been an urbane kind of gent, but today he’s taking laconic deadpan to new levels. Maybe it’s just the early hour of the day when MOJO calls him at home in New York, or maybe he’s slowed down since his recovery from cancer in 2015, but every answer starts with a long pause and is delivered slowly in low tone as if with deadly seriousness. Then, as often as not, Sakamoto ends with a wry chuckle as he reflects upon a memory or foible of culture. This certainly suits his current music. In the past he’s been a techno pioneer (solo and with Yellow Magic Orchestra), made elegant pop with everyone from Iggy Pop to Bootsy Collins to Brian Wilson, and made many dramatic Hollywood soundtracks, starting with Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, in which he also acted alongside David Bowie. However, aside from collaborating on some Japanese pop records with his daughter in the 2000s, his 21st century work has tended towards electronica that’s absolutely boggling in its minimalism and glacial pace. Both his score with German electronicist Alva Noto for The Revenant and async, his first solo album in seven years, are abstracted, dreamlike, and very, very beautiful.
These days you are making very abstract music: do you think you will ever make another pop record?
I’m not sure. If I were to have plenty of boring time, then maybe I would (laughs). But nowadays I’m interested in more abstract, free-form, freestyle music – not pop or typical standardised music. If I’m asked to write a song, still I can, but right now my interest is to find unknown forms of music and unknown sounds.
You do still return to the standard format of the album though…
One practical reason is that the CD is still selling very much in Japan. In New York we’ve lost almost all the CD shops, there’s no more. Vinyl shops yes, but no more CD shops. If you go to Tower Records in Tokyo, though, you see lots and lots of CDs, it’s a different world. A more slightly artistic reason is that maybe I’m old, but I still like one set of around 60 minutes of music. Of course, I could be releasing piece-by-piece, any time, it doesn’t have to be a set – but I kind of like it!
There was a lot of fun and humour in YMO and your early solo music: was it as much of a laugh as it looks?
Oh yes. It was fun, and we were aware we were doing something very new and unknown with techno or techno-pop or whatever you call it. It was a big pleasure to do something so new. And we injected making fun of the traditional image of the Japanese in the West, the image of Asian people in Hollywood movies, we laughed about this a lot.
I was looking at your Thousand Knives album, and you rock a skinny new wave tie and jeans look extraordinarily well – was fashion important to you then?
It was not me, but Yukihiro Takahashi. He was a very good drummer, but also a fashion designer, so mostly it was his ideas. We just wore whatever he gave us – and we liked what he did. When he gave us a red Mao suit, we enjoyed to let people misunderstand if we were Japanese or Chinese – even some Japanese people were puzzled and thought we were Chinese. So we liked it, the mismatch was fun.
When you did your Playing The Piano album in 2009, you said you were happy to revisit your old music because you play it at home anyway – is that still the case?
I still play piano at home almost every day, but I only play Bach really. But it’s always fun to play my own music, and it’s especially fun to conduct an orchestra playing my music, so if someone asks me, I’m happy to do it.
You have collaborated with some great musicians, but you never did with David Bowie despite acting with him and being friends – how come?
Unfortunately no. I asked him to sing on the Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence theme and he said no (laughs) – he wanted to focus on acting then. Later on… well, I didn’t know he’d go so fast… So that was my mistake. That’s my big regret.
There seem to be a lot of electronic-classical film scores at the moment – Clint Mansell, Mica Levi and so on – do you feel like this is a kind of musical movement?
I think so. I can see the trend, but I think it’s too many. It’s too trendy. Of course, for writers and composers it’s really easy, because we can finish the music with just a computer, using limitless libraries of phrases and timbres and colours and instruments, copy and paste and modify it thanks to the power of the computer. I think it’s becoming a bit too easy for us!
Some of your tracks seem to have enduring appeal for DJs – did you intend something like [1980 track] Riot In Lagos to be a dance tune?
Wow. That’s wonderful. I want to know the secret, so I can produce many more tracks like that! Maybe someone can analyse and teach me. For that track I was very much interested in the African R&B, all that music like Fela Kuti – is that dance music? I wanted to make African dance music, maybe.
Tell us something you’ve never told an interviewer.
I must confess that I killed somebody. I never told that before. (Long pause) Of course, it’s not a fact… it’s an alternative fact. (Chuckles)