I reviewed the 12″ single to “Get Lucky.” Because if I don’t who will?
Another post dedicated entirely to Ryuichi Sakamoto. I should just turn this site into a Yellow Magic Orchestra fanpage.
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Forbidden Colours
The Last Emperor
Little Buddha
Wuthering Heights
Replica
El Mar Mediterrani
All of these tracks are live, taken from the album Cinemage.
The first four are excepts from musical scores and soundtracks that Sakamoto worked on. “Forbidden Colours” being the theme to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, while the others are all self-titled from the films they appeared in. This version of “Forbidden Colours” does feature Sylvian’s vocals, but I suspect they were dubbed in later and not performed live with the rest of the music.
“Replica” is the only track on the album that is not taken from some sort of project, it is lifted from the Japanese version of Sakamoto’s solo album Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia. Next to “Forbidden Colours,” it’s probably my favorite track on Cinemage, thanks to its regimented, minimalist feel that echos Phillip Glass.
Finally, there’s “El Mar Mediterrani,” which was composed for the 1992 summer Olympic games. It’s 17 minutes long and crazy. That Olympic theme that John Williams did doesn’t have shit on this.
Bonus Sakamoto!
Jungle LIVE Mix Of Untitled 01 – 2nd Movement – Anger
I put up a ton of remixes from Sakamoto’s album Dischord a few weeks ago and since then a reader sent me along this mix, which he snagged off a promo CD. I love it, it’s just barely removed from pure noise at parts. As a narcoleptic who has built up a near-immunity to caffeine, I really find that comes in handy at times.
I’ve got Cinemage on minidisc. Got a minidisc player because I thought the format would be as popular as cd…maybe even replace cd as the standard music format. That didn’t happen. Albums on minidiscs were too hard to find, and cost a lot in stores that did have them. But blank discs were fairly easy to come across. Probably the RIAA helped squash minidisc in the US before it had a chance to get big, because the format made it so easy to copy music/audio from many different types of sources.
I’m pretty sure that’s David Sylvian’s voice on “Forbidden Colors”
(at least… it is his vocals on the original, and that voice sounds very similar…)
oops, never mind … I misread what you wrote
Sylvians vocals were recorded and played back live while Sakamoto played – something quite different at the time. They have also performed the song live from two different concerts.
Nice find. The arrangements bring to mind the orchestral cinema themes of the 1960s.