Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin will present “Ryuichi Sakamoto. seeing sound, hearing time” from 11 September 2026 to 23 May 2027, marking the first major European retrospective dedicated to the late Japanese composer, producer and artist.

Opening during Berlin Art Week, the exhibition will occupy around 1,500 square metres in the Rieckhallen and will bring together seven works in five large-scale installations, placing Sakamoto’s practice at the point where composition, film, performance, technology and visual art begin to alter each other’s grammar.

Here’s a glimpse of the Ryuichi Sakamoto retrospective that took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in 2024.

About Ryuichi Sakamoto

Born in Tokyo in 1952, Ryuichi Sakamoto entered the wider musical map with his 1978 solo debut “Thousand Knives” and, that same year, co-founded Yellow Magic Orchestra with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, a group whose influence on electronic pop, synth-based production, techno, hip-hop and game music still reads like a hidden operating system behind large parts of contemporary sound culture. His solo work moved restlessly between avant-pop, chamber music, ambient composition, electronic experimentation and piano-led minimalism, while albums such as “B-2 Unit,” “Neo Geo,” “Beauty,” “async” and the final “12” reveal an artist who treated sound as matter, climate and memory rather than as genre.

His film work brought that language to international cinema. Sakamoto scored Nagisa Oshima’s “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” in which he starred alongside David Bowie, and later composed for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” “The Sheltering Sky” and “Little Buddha,” as well as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant.” His awards included an Academy Award, a Grammy, a BAFTA and two Golden Globes, yet the significance of his film music lies beyond prestige: Sakamoto could compress political history, erotic tension, exile, landscape and private grief into themes whose elegance never softened their emotional pressure.

“Ryuichi Sakamoto, seeing sound, hearing time” focuses on Sakamoto’s later spatial and audiovisual practice, especially the three-dimensional sound environments he developed from the 2000s onwards with collaborators including Shiro Takatani, Carsten Nicolai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Among the central works is “Is Your Time” from 2017, created with Shiro Takatani, in which a piano damaged by the 2011 tsunami becomes an acoustic object activated through real-time seismological data from earthquakes around the world. Further installations grow out of “async,” Sakamoto’s 2017 album shaped by fragility, decay, field recordings and the presence of mortality, while two films by Carsten Nicolai use music from “12,” the intimate sonic diary recorded by Sakamoto between 2021 and 2022.

The retrospective arrives in Berlin as part of the 30th anniversary programme of Hamburger Bahnhof, a museum whose history has long involved the friction between contemporary art, sound, performance and expanded media. Curated by Ingrid Buschmann of Hamburger Bahnhof together with Tokyo-based curator Sachiko Namba, the exhibition will be presented in cooperation with KAB Inc. / KAB America Inc. and Dumb Type Office Ltd.

For audiences connected to electronic, experimental and post-industrial music, Sakamoto’s work remains essential because it never reduced technology to surface or spectacle. His machines breathed, his pianos carried weather, his silences had architecture. This Berlin exhibition promises a rare encounter with an artist who understood sound as a way of measuring time, damage, tenderness and the invisible forces moving through bodies and rooms.

Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away at the age of 71 in March 2023 after succumbing to cancer after a years-long battle.

’12’, the last Ryuichi Sakamoto album (January 2023)

In January 2023 Side-Line presented Sakamoto’s last album, “12”, out via Milan Records. The 12 compositions were recorded by Ryuichi Sakamoto in Tokyo during his 2-year long fight with cancer throughout 2021-2022. The album, his 15th, was the first of new solo material since 2017. The album’s twelve tracks are titled and sequenced by the dates each were written, culminating in a diary-like collection of music that provides an intimate snapshot into this period of Sakamoto’s life.

Prior to the release of his album, Sakamoto debuted a special solo piano concert that was streamed online to over 60,000 viewers worldwide. His first live performance in two years, the concert was recorded at Tokyo’s renowned 509 Studio over a week and featured an hour of the composer playing new arrangements from his extensive repertoire and new album.

Watch “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” from the live-streamed “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022” on Sunday, December 11, 2022.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Update: Geir Jenssen has co-written two of the tracks on “Radiant Green”.

(Photo by Knut Åserud) Good news from Norway as the cult band Bel Canto will release an all new album on April 26th, called “Radiant Green“. “Radiant Green” comes after more than two decades of studio silence since their last album “Dorothy’s Victory” already dates from 2002.

“Radiant Green” will be out digitally and on CD and double vinyl. The material was mixed by Matias Tellez and Gilles Martin. For Martin it means his comeback after having produced the first 3 albums of the band, the last being “Shimmering, Warm & Bright” from 1992. Martin’s production helped establish Bel Canto’s distinctive sound in the early days.

Here’s a first teaser which the band released.

The band also released the cover artwork for the new album.

About Bel Canto

Bel Canto, originally a trio but now a duo, features Anneli Drecker as the lead vocalist and was initially under the Crammed Discs label.

The ensemble originated in Tromsø in 1985, established by Geir Jenssen (handling synthesizers and programming), Nils Johansen (playing synthesizer, violin, bass, and guitar), alongside vocalist Anneli Drecker. Their musical influences span a wide range, including Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), David Bowie, artists from 4AD, Clannad, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, David Sylvian, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), Ryuichi Sakamoto, Depeche Mode, and the Blue Nile.

In 1986, the trio relocated to Brussels, releasing their debut album, “White-Out Conditions,” through Crammed Discs a year later. Following their second album, “Birds of Passage” (1990), Jenssen departed to pursue a successful solo career as Biosphere, leaving Drecker and Johansen to achieve a commercial breakthrough with “Shimmering, Warm and Bright” in 1992. By this time, their music had transitioned from ethereal dream electropop to a synth-based pop sound enriched with world music elements.

Anneli Drecker occasionally paused her involvement with Bel Canto to focus on solo projects and collaborations with other artists and bands, including Röyksopp and a-ha, in addition to her work in film and theater. Nils Johansen, meanwhile, composed music for film and television and continued his involvement with his other band, Vajas.

In 2010, following a reunion concert in Oslo, Side-Line interviewed the original members, who revealed they were working on a new album, although tensions were apparent. Ultimately, Geir Jenssen left the band once more, and the project was left unfinished.

A previously unreleased track from 1988, “Flowerbeds,” surfaced in 2009 on the Norwegian compilation “Maskindans: Norsk synth 1980–1988,” released by Hommage Records. In 2017, Bel Canto graced the stage at Øyafestivalen in Oslo, delivering a performance that spanned their hits in a set lasting nearly an hour. During an interview, Drecker expressed the band’s enthusiasm for more live performances and the potential for new music.

In June 2022, Anneli Drecker and Nils Johansen shared news of their ongoing work on a forthcoming Bel Canto album.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Extremely sad news reaches us from Japan where renowned composer and producer Ryuichi Sakamoto, a pioneer in incorporating electronic production into popular music, has passed away at the age of 71. On March 28, Sakamoto succumbed to cancer after a years-long battle, as reported in a statement on his website on Sunday.

The statement shared one of Sakamoto’s favourite quotes: “Ars longa, vita brevis,” which translates to “Art is long, life is short.” The full statement was also published on Twitter as you can see below.

pic.twitter.com/Fq0hRyp5F4

— commmons (@commmons) April 2, 2023

Composer and actor

Born on January 17, 1952, Sakamoto enjoyed a culturally rich upbringing, with his father working as an editor for postwar Japanese novelists like Kenzaburo Oe and Yukio Mishima. He began taking piano lessons at the age of six and later started composing his own music. As a teenager, he became captivated by the work of Claude Debussy, a composer who drew inspiration from Asian musical aesthetics, including Japanese styles.

Sakamoto, who was based in Tokyo and New York, began his career as a member of the legendary Japanese electronic music trio Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). He made his film composer debut with “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” (1983), in which he also starred as an actor alongside David Bowie. The main theme was adapted into the international hit single “Forbidden Colours,” featuring vocals by David Sylvian. Sakamoto continued his successful film composing career with works such as “The Last Emperor” (1987), “The Sheltering Sky” (1990), “Little Buddha” (1993), and “The Revenant” (2015).

Last album released in January

In January Side-Line presented Sakamoto’s last album, “12”, out via Milan Records. The 12 compositions were recorded by Ryuichi Sakamoto in Tokyo during his 2-year long fight with cancer throughout 2021-2022. The album, his 15th, was the first of new solo material since 2017. The album’s twelve tracks are titled and sequenced by the dates each were written, culminating in a diary-like collection of music that provides an intimate snapshot into this period of Sakamoto’s life.

Prior to the release of his album, Sakamoto debuted a special solo piano concert that was streamed online to over 60,000 viewers worldwide. His first live performance in two years, the concert was recorded at Tokyo’s renowned 509 Studio over a week and featured an hour of the composer playing new arrangements from his extensive repertoire and new album.

Watch “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” from the live-streamed “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022” on Sunday, December 11, 2022.

Ryuichi Sakamoto will be dearly missed.

「どこにいても、元気でいてね」

“Time is so short, and I’m sure that I don’t have much time left. So I’m doing my best to enjoy every day.”

– Ryuichi Sakamoto, as quoted in an interview with Asahi Shimbun in 2017 –

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

The cult Japanese musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto is back with all new album, “12”, via Milan Records. The 12 compositions were recorded by Ryuichi Sakamoto in Tokyo during his 2-year long fight with cancer throughout 2021-2022. The album, his 15th so far, is the first of new solo material since 2017. The album’s twelve tracks are titled and sequenced by the dates each were written, culminating in a diary-like collection of music that provides an intimate snapshot into this period of Sakamoto’s life.

As a result you get this tracklist:

1. 20210310
2. 20211130
3. 20211201
4. 20220123
5. 20220202
6. 20220207
7. 20220214
8. 20220302 – sarabande
9. 20220302
10. 20220307
11. 20220404
12. 20220304

Of the album, Sakamoto says: “In early March 2021, I finally “came home” to my new temporary housing after a big operation and a long stay in the hospital. Around the end of March, just as my body was feeling a little lighter, I found myself reaching for the synthesizer. I had no intention of composing something, I just wanted to be showered in sound. I just had a feeling that it’ll have a small healing effect on my damaged body and soul. Up until then, I barely had the energy to listen to music, let alone play anything. But after that day, I began to occasionally touch the keys of the synthesizer and piano and I began to record little sketches of sounds as if to write a diary. I tried choosing 12 of my favorite sketches for this album. There are no adornments—I’m intentionally putting them out as is. From now on, until my body gives out, I’ll probably continue to keep this kind of “diary”.”

Based in Tokyo and New York he started out as a member of the legendary japanese electronic music trio YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra). As a film composer he debuted with the excellent “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” (1983) both as a musician and as an actor (vs David Bowie). The main theme was adapted into the single “Forbidden Colours” which became an international hit (with vocals by David Sylvian). His most successful work as a film composer was “The Last Emperor” (1987), after which he continued earning accolades composing for films such as “The Sheltering Sky” (1990), “Little Buddha” (1993), and “The Revenant” (2015).

In advance of the album’s release, Sakamoto recently debuted a special solo piano concert that was streamed online to an audience of over 60,000 viewers across the globe. His first live performance in two years, the concert was recorded over the course of a week at Tokyo’s legendary 509 Studio and features an hour of the composer playing new arrangements both spanning his repertoire and from his new album.

Check “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” from the live streaming “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022” from Sunday, December 11, 2022. Welcome back Ryuichi Sakamoto!

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

(Photo by Jürgen Sieckmeyer) Out on February 17 2023 on Mute is the reissue of Phew’s 1992 album, “Our Likeness” which was recorded at Conny Plank’s studio in Cologne. On this album avant-garde vocalist, electronics innovator and post-punk artist Phew was joined by Jaki Liebezeit, Alexander Hacke, Chrislo Haas and Thomas Stern.

Phew first came to the fore as the vocalist of Japanese post-punk group Aunt Sally (whose 1979 debut was reissued last year on Mesh-Key) before going on to record a solo single with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Her 1981 self-titled album, recorded with Liebezeit and Holger Czukay, was engineered by Conny Plank, and was followed by 1987’s “View”.

It was Chrislo Haas (D.A.F. / Liaisons Dangereuses / Der Plan), who had met Phew briefly when Plank engineered her debut solo album in 1981, who arranged for Alexander Hacke (guitar / Einstürzende Neubauten) and Thomas Stern (bass / Crime & the City Solution) to join. Can’s drummer Jaki Liebezeit also reunited with Phew to collaborate alongside this new generation of German experimental musicians. Chrislo Haas also introduced Phew to Daniel Miller, for the original release of “Our Likeness”.

Phew remembers: “When I was recording at Conny’s Studio in 1981, a young German man came to visit, sat quietly in the studio for a while and left without saying a word. His politeness was long remembered and can still be recalled. It was when he came to Japan that I discovered he was Chrislo Haas of D.A.F. At the end of the 1980s he visited me in Tokyo, then we decided to make something together, and a few months later we were recording at Conny’s Studio. Chrislo contacted the musicians who took part, Alex Hacke, Jaki Liebezeit and Thomas Stern, told Mute about the project and Our Likeness was released. I often wonder what kind of music Chrislo would have made if he had still been here on earth. Twenty-four years later, I met Alex Hacke again at a festival in Poland, where I got to play with hackedepicciotto. And now I am working with Danielle de Picciotto. More to come!”

You can check out the title track below.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

(Photo by Masayuki Shioda) Phew, a Japanese singer and analogue electronics improviser working in the areas of experimental and avant-garde music, has announced details of a new album – her first for Mute since 1992’s “Our Likeness”. A first track is available now, “Into the Stream”, for which you can view the video below. “New Decade” is out on Mute on 22 October 2021.

The video acts as a sequel to the closing track on her recent compilation for Disciples and was directed by Lisa Aoki. Below is the video for “Into the Stream”.

About Phew

Phew rose to prominence with the art-punk group Aunt Sally before her first solo release in 1981, recorded at Conny Plank’s studio in Cologne with Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit.

After Aunt Sally broke up after releasing one LP she has mostly worked solo with musicians such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit, Chrislo Haas, Alexander Hacke, Yuji Takahashi, Seiichi Yamamoto, Hiroyuki Nagashima, Otomo Yoshihide in the group Novo Tono, Dieter Moebius on Phew’s Project Undark Radium Girls project, Jim O’Rourke and Ana da Silva.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Noone else but XTC’s Andy Partridge has been working with the 80s pop infused act Darling Boy (aka Alexander Gold) for the new single “Breaking Into Forever” as far as production goes.

Not all that surprising as we have seen Partridge’s credits popping up allover the place in the past few years namely in records by (and we limit to those which will interest the scene public more or less): Tricky, Blur, Thomas Dolby, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Icehouse, Primus, Sarah McLachlan, Bad Company, The Stranglers, The Mission, The Residents, and many many more.

Not sure if you will like the bubblegum pop produced here though.

On a side-note, Darling Boy refers to “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”, a song written and performed by John Lennon. It was released on the 1980 album “Double Fantasy”, the last album by Lennon and Ono released before his death. Paul McCartney has stated this is one of his favourite songs composed by Lennon, and when he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1982 included it as his favorite in his selection, as did Yoko Ono as the only John Lennon song in 2007. It was used as the B-side of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” to promote the compilation album “The John Lennon Collection” in November 1982.

Music history, it never stops to amaze us doesn’t it.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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