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Life, Life
from async (2017)
by Ryuichi Sakamoto
Listen: https://t.co/kIzt0s7Zou
Following his cancer diagnosis in 2014, Sakamoto scrapped all the work he had begun creating his first solo album in 8 years. After completing treatment, he returned from hiatus and approached the album with a clean slate, which would become the acclaimed album 'async.'
Motivated by "a desire to truly hear the sound of things—everyday things," Sakamoto set about collecting recordings of objects and ambient noises from the environment:
"When I was looking for objects to record, I remembered seeing the Baschet Brothers' sound sculptures at the Osaka Expo in 1970. I found them in a university building in Kyoto, and on a hot summer day, they let
me record the sculptures in the sweltering heat amidst echoes of cicadas".
The recordings Sakamoto captured in Kyoto, 2016, found their way into several songs on 'async', including the meditation on mortality, 'Life, Life' with Arseny Tarkovsky's poetry read by his good friend David Sylvian.
For the World Expo 2025, returning to Osaka, sakamotocommon is launching a series of exhibitions and installations at "VS.," a newly opened space in Umeda, Osaka.
The exhibition will feature the Baschet sound sculptures originally shown at Expo '70 and newly created instruments crafted by the Baschet Restoration Team at Tokyo University of the Arts—made especially for Sakamoto. The exhibition will also premiere 'Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Baschet' in 360 Reality Audio—a rare recording of Sakamoto performing on Baschet sound sculptures in the final years of his life.
https://t.co/FdVmXKdFsz
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