Ryuichi Sakamoto

This evening I noticed Sony Classical's page for Ryuichi Sakamoto has some nice samples from the collection disc Moto.tronic. (Sakamoto's own page with its mysterious camisole-clad Sigmund Freud is here.)



I've been a fan of Sakamoto since his work with David Byrne on the soundtrack for Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (which also happens to be one of my favorite films). Although the main theme is most frequently included in collections, the tracks Where is Armo? and Rain (I Want a Divorce) are excellent and probably my favorites.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's works span quite a range, from the piano compositions in BTTB to the disco remixes of You Do Me to his various soundtrack compositions to New Age to bossa nova and sambo tracks you'll find in the sampler on the Sony site. His talent, range and creativity have long been inspirations to me.

Since I'm on the subject, with Andrew Lum, Sakamoto produced an album for erhu artist Kenny Wen titled A Flower is Not a Flower. I once heard a wonderful erhu instrumental that I believe is the title track from this disc, and at this point, I've given up my quest of trying to hunt the disc down and buy it. If Google leads you to this page, and you know how I can get buy a copy of it, please leave a comment. Thanks.