‘I know I only have limited time left’

captures it perfectly (if you haven’t seen any of the Soviet director’s work, you’ll just have to go with this. Also: you really should see some.)

Sometimes it’s as simple as paying tribute: the record’s opening track, Andanta, recalls the Bach organ chorale that haunts Tarkovsky’s 1972 science-fiction opus Solaris.

Even the recording process itself had a Tarkovskian vibe. Sakamoto made field recordings for async in the abandoned town of Futaba, home of the crisis-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. He recalls the excursion, which he made with local guides with geiger counters, as feeling “like scenes from Stalker”, in which three men rove through a sealedoff and shape-shifting wilderness known as “The Zone”, in search of enlightenment.

Not that you have to be au fait with Russian auteurs to experience async’s celestial kick. The album’s extraordinary centrepiece is Fullmoon, which repurposes the closing monologue from Bertolucci’s 1990 film The Sheltering Sky, though you don’t need to have even heard of its source to feel its heart-prickling effect.

Some of Sakamoto’s filmmaking partnerships are more unexpected than others. You wouldn’t place him with a swaggering stylist like De Palma in a million years, for instance – until you hear the luxurious, Bernard Herrmannesque suites he cooked up for Snake Eyes and Femme Fatale, and suddenly it makes silky-smooth

Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto tells ells Robbie Collin how cancer has affected his music ic