Ivar de Vries writes:
This short disc contains music for a show by fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto and is the first indication of the basic, classically-inspired style adopted by Ryuichi Sakamoto over the next few years as shown on later releases such as 1996 and BTTB.
Fellow former YMO member Yukihiro Takahashi also did the music for two Yamamoto shows around this time and Ryuichi Sakamoto on this album follows suit with a beautiful and tranquil piano piece, totally unlike the music usually heard at fashion show events.
After a short six-minute intro where the piano-sounds are electronically modified (to probably set up what must be the show's eerie atmosphere) the main thirty-minute piece begins. In it one can recognise the A-B-A sonata form known from classical music - this could be accidental although it should certainly be known to Sakamoto who actually got a degree in music from a Tokyo university in the seventies (after which he acquired the nickname "Professor" from his pop-music friends). As a consequence the piece divides into three sections each totalling some ten minutes where the first section consists of a dialogue between two themes (one fast, the other slow) which both return in somewhat stormier fashion in the third section. Inbetween stands a thoughtful slow section, which has a rather grave theme - it hints at a crisis to which the third section then brings resolution through its succession of noble chords. In keeping with the sonata form, the slow themes from all sections return towards the end in a final coda.
All this becomes apparent only after repeated listening but does help to understand the piece, which could otherwise sound unstructured. People who like straight piano-music will in all likelihood appreciate this album, which makes for a nice listen.

Ivar de Vries writes:
Snake Eyes is the soundtrack to a run-of-the-mill Hollywood thriller by Brian de Palma which concerns unraveling the mystery surrounding an assassination. Ryuichi Sakamoto provides a conventional orchestral soundtrack to which the nowadays obligatory pop-songs are added, one by rockstar Meredith Brooks and one by soulstar LaKiesha Berri.
Sakamoto's music for this project is rather run-of-the-mill as well, most of it being standard Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock-movie-type stuff. Tracks like Tyler and Serena and The Storm are actually rather enjoyable examples of this genre, whilst the title-track more or less stands up there with the likes of the Sheltering Sky and Last Emperor main themes, providing some emotional depth. All good standard stuff, nothing special but probably hard to get hold of in the future, although already a second release has seen the light of day. An interesting moment appears in the middle of Tyler and Serena, which sounds like it comes straight out of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.
It is quite unbelievable that Sakamoto almost simultaneously worked on another completely different soundtrack (the one to Love is the Devil) - he must use some composer's analogue to method acting or something to get into the right mood.

Ivar de Vries writes:
The soundtrack to a small art-house movie about avant-garde English painter Francis Bacon (not to be confused with the 17th-century crackpot philosopher), 'Love Is The Devil' provides suitably avant-garde music. Certainly one of the most adventurous albums in Ryuichi Sakamoto's oeuvre, it is completely electronic apart from some shrill piano-sounds at various points. Its excellent sound-production is very much tailored to enhancing the claustrophobic scenes of the movie. The movie consists of a series of miniature scenes that together depict an episode in the life of the painter, which means on the album the music tracks have been ordered and given titles accordingly and are also mostly on the short side. Put together they make the album sound like one 45-minute piece, rather like Sakamoto did on the soundtrack to 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence'.
Bacon (1909 1992) was by all accounts a complex and emotionally depraved man who expressed his morbid fantasies about human bodies into his paintings and the movie plus music reflects this. It uses harsh industrial sounds and plenty of experimental special effects to accompany the nightmarish thoughts of Bacon and his lover, living their hedonistic lives in the midst of London's artistic underbelly during the 1950s, but there are some moments of harmony as well. In the movie a number of songs from that period are also used, mostly during smoky bar-scenes.
This is an interesting excursion from Sakamoto's usual soundtrack work (for example 'Snake Eyes' released just prior) and certainly recommendable, but not an album and film for the faint-hearted.

Ivar de Vries writes:
The album-title stands for Back To The Basics and this little phrase sums up nicely what Ryuichi Sakamoto has been doing for the few years leading up to BTTB, as evidenced by earlier releases such as 1996 and Discord. Apart from a few strange percussion pieces (played on a so-called "prepared piano"), the album consists of straight piano pieces which I suppose could equally well have been written a hundred years ago and betray a certain French classical influence.
This is really thoughtful music and Sakamoto (evidently having left behind his playful YMO/earlier solo days) even approaches Vangelis' piano-pieces in emotional depth here. Fine examples in this regard are the beautifully melancholic 'Intermezzo' and the surprising #1 hit-single 'Energy Flow', plenty of other tracks are equally good. Sakamoto again shows us his considerable expertise at playing the piano and, to get maximum effect out of the material, makes cunning use of the age-old tricks available to pianists: subtle variations in dynamics and tempo, as in fact Vangelis does so well (it won't happen, but it would be a fine challenge for him to do an album like this, for us to be able to compare their respective piano-playing skills). And Ryuichi Sakamoto can do it live as well, judging from his 1999/2000 world-tour.
The wealth of melodic material has been put to good use in further releases. The international BTTB release on Sony Classical is actually the third one. The original 1998 Japanese version only had 14 tracks and also appeared in a box-set edition with some pieces in MIDI format on a diskette and printed sheet music. The February 1999 version added two bonus-tracks (piano-versions of the theme to the 1998 movie 'Snake Eyes' and old YMO favourite 'Tong Poo'). Summer 1999 saw the release of the Japanese hit CD-single Ura BTTB containing a further 3 tracks. The final release on Sony Classical more or less merges all these earlier versions (but leaves out 4 tracks) and adds yet another new track: 'Reversing'.
Furthermore, for those who don't like piano-music, a 1999 release by Sakamoto protegee Miki Nakatani (called Shiseikatsu) has some BTTB tracks in electronic J-pop arrangements.
And finally, for those who can't get enough of piano-music, classical pianist Chitose Okashiro has recorded, with Sakamoto's blessing, many BTTB pieces on her Pro Piano disc, along with world-premieres of other pieces.

Ivar de Vries writes:
One would think that, with the performance and subsequent release of his ambitious opera 'Life' in September 1999, Ryuichi Sakamoto would close out the 20^th century. Not so because, workaholic as he is, another soundtrack lasting well over an hour is produced in a matter of months, this time for a Japanese period costume-film located in the 19^th century called 'Gohatto', later released internationally as 'Taboo', a reference to its gay theme. For Sakamoto it meant a second collaboration with director Nagisa Oshima, after 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence'.

But it's definitely not a rush-job as it has the sort of detailed texture also associated with the earlier soundtrack to 'Love Is The Devil', which means electronic ambient backgrounds coupled to high piano-sounds, this time joined by a razor-sharp string ensemble and a few other acoustic instruments. Compared with 'Love Is The Devil' however, 'Gohatto' is a bit more melodic and also more Japanese in feel. It often evokes the delicacy of those well-kept Japanese gardens, not least because of the crystal-clear production.

Sakamoto again employs the device used before by him and other movie-composers of coming up with a memorable melodic theme which keeps reappearing in different guises. It all culminates in the 'End Theme' after which Sakamoto puts down what was probably the initial inspiration in a solo piano-piece. It also ends the central and what appears to be the spiritual high-point of the album: 'Supper' which starts off with what sounds like a bunch of Buddhist monks chanting away.

This is all pretty serious music and bound to disappoint old-time Sakamoto fans who like his YMO and/or eighties period better. On the other hand, music like this can be appreciated as beautiful in an abstract sort of way and is consistent with Sakamoto's musical direction since 1996 of becoming a more serious composer and attracting new audiences. In the late nineties, it was only in the side-projects with the likes of Miki Nakatani and his daughter Miu that the Sakamoto of earlier times manifested himself.

Ivar de Vries writes:
The main purpose of this charity-project, the first of its kind for Ryuichi Sakamoto, was of course to help out the campaign to generate awareness about the tens of millions of landmines left behind after futile wars, and to raise funds to get rid of the danger they present to many lives around the world. The cover plus booklet bring that message home very directly, with cold statistics about the various types of mines and graphs about their production and deployment. Sakamoto auctioned off his own hand-written score on some Japanese site where it was eventually sold for about $6600 to add to the already ample proceeds of the maxi-single itself.

Happily enough, he didn't forget to compose a more than decent, if not great piece of music to serve a longer-term interest as well. He has always been able to create thoughtful and profound music which is still upbeat and positive without becoming naive, i.e. ideal for this project. Moreover, it served as a vehicle to bring in a whole galaxy of guest-musicians. Although the three YMO-members (Hosono, Sakamoto, Takahashi) plus former Japan singer David Sylvian do the bulk of the music and lyrics, there are cameo-appearances by all kinds of other instrumentalists and singers. They all come together in the long opening track, which is a sort of ethnic journey across Africa and Asia (the regions most plagued by mines), Takahashi's drums, Hosono's bass and Sakamoto's keyboards providing the steady backing-track to all kinds of swinging world-music stuff, samples, Kraftwerk's little sound-logo, Brian Eno's sounds etc. This all culminates in a final sing-along piece, also present separately as track 4.

As always, the first inspiration came on the piano, where the material immediately sounds much more serious, as in the second track with vocals and suitable lyrics by David Sylvian. But the best is saved for last, because the strong final track is basically all YMO with Sakamoto bringing to the fore those smooth high-pitched keyboard sounds which, added to the slightly lazy rhythm, produce a great hypnotic effect.

Probably most people can do without the perhaps slightly corny charity aspect, but here it's more a case of already good music additionally supporting what is after all a worthy cause, rather than using the cause to sell bad music.

Ivar de Vries writes:
In the summer of 2000, cellist Jacques Morelenbaum and Ryuichi Sakamoto finished touring the 'BTTB' album around the world and, to top things off, it was decided to throw a private little party-turned-concert in the lobby of a London hotel (later released as the 'In the Lobby' album). Talvin Singh popped in and since it took place around Jacques' wife Paula's birthday, she was invited to sing a song by popular Brazilian jazz-composer Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994). This relatively low-key event proved to be the genesis of the 'Casa' project one year later, a studio- and live-album that form an interesting excursion from Sakamoto's other projects around that time, and just before the September 11 events made his work turn much more serious. For the Morelenbaums it was less of an excursion, as they'd been involved in several Jobim-related projects before.

First there was the studio album, recorded in the comfortable surroundings of Jobim's own house (or casa), located in Rio de Janeiro. Fourteen songs and two instrumentals were selected by the trio for inclusion on the album, in arrangements for piano, cello and vocal, sometimes enhanced by a little bass, percussion or guitar. Paula Morelenbaum has the perfect voice for this sort of sunny repertoire which doesn't require a high-volume voice, very smooth and even, also into the lower registers. One gathers from these albums that Jobim basically wrote two types of pieces: slow and fast. The latter type usually has a steady rhythm on the guitar and sparkling melodies, easiest to play and very easy on the ear too. The slower pieces consist of meandering chord progressions, with lots of little stops and starts, the vocal melody holding things together. These have to be played with plenty of poetic feeling and in the hands of lesser gods can easily sound clumsy. Here things generally work out well, even if Sakamoto has never been particularly known for poetry in music.

Next up a series of concerts took place during August 2001 in Tokyo's Akasaka ACT and other theatres, subsequently released on CD and DVD-Audio. The slower songs mostly appear in the first half of the programme, the quicker ones near the end. Six songs were already known from the studio-album, added are seven new Jobim songs, of which the final two are a particular delight. They also include the wistful 'Falando de Amor' which started it all off in the lobby. Sakamoto's own exercise in the South-American genre ('Tango', with new lyrics by Paula) plus one song by another Brazilian star Caetano Veloso complete the programme.

Both booklets have the Portuguese lyrics printed and the DVD-Audio has artist's biographies plus, for each track, either a little picture-gallery or Japanese commentary by the trio, as well as the video-clip accompanying the 'O Grande Amor' single, showing scenes from the recording-sessions and sunny Rio.

Elephantism represents Ryuichi Sakamoto recovering from and trying to make some sense on a human level of the September 11 events in his adopted residence New York. He did this by spending some time in Kenya (February 5^th -16^th, 2002), taking in its beautiful nature and wildlife, interacting with some of the local communities and having a number of interviews with scientists working there. A crew led by producer Sinya Kumagai was taken along to film all these aspects and later rework the material into the various entities that make up Elephantism: a double DVD plus book and website launched in April at the Zoorasia resort in Yokohama and sometime later a CD containing the music recorded after and evidently inspired by the journey.
If one can accept the idea of Sakamoto sort of holidaying around Kenya and asking big questions about the origin and fate of humanity to people far removed from the actual conflict following on from September 11, then the DVD/book set is most interesting. Starting with the book: it has the same order as the content of the DVDs (that is, when browsed from right to left), all the texts are in Japanese, it has plenty of beautiful photography, a diary and an article with Yoko Ono.

The region 2 DVDs can be played continuously or individual parts of it can be selected via a menu. The first disc contains a video-clip for the Great Africa CD-track; the second has one for Elephant Dance, but apart from that their main content is as follows:

·    Disc I part 1 "Into Africa": events start off with pictures of Sakamoto visiting first Ground Zero and then the memorial to the earlier terrorist attack in Nairobi in 1998. This to some pretty ambient piano-music (Embassy on the CD). He makes a visit to the Nairobi Museum where Meave Leakey first explains the scientific aspects of a homo erectus boy skeleton on display. Then they sit down in her laboratory where Sakamoto takes out his notebook and asks her about human aggression (her answer: it's not genetically determined and stems from overcrowding and lack of education).

·    Disc I part 2 "Cradle of Mankind": first pictures taken from an airplane set to more smooth ambient music. Then we see Sakamoto visiting a site with local fossil hunter Kamoya Kimue who actually found the boy skeleton there in 1984 (subsequently attributed to homo ergaster), talking about how exactly it was discovered and about the differences in nature between us (homo sapiens) and those older species of humans.
Another interlude showing drawings carved in rocks set to African chants with a Sakamoto arrangement (Elmolo Dance on the CD) is followed by him sitting in the sunset reflecting on what he's found out.

·    Disc I part 3 "People with Pride": pictures of a peaceful fishing community at Lake Turkana, set to Elephantism 2 from the CD, followed by the Mosaretu women doing a dance, also on the CD. More musing from Sakamoto afterwards.

·    Disc I part 4 "Echoes of Elephants": pictures of a visit to Joyce Poole who has a sound-library containing thousands of elephant calls. She explains the meanings of various calls to a very interested Sakamoto. They then have a lengthy and interesting discussion about the family life of elephants and what humans can learn from that. Poole leans more towards the view that human aggression is genetically determined.

·    Disc II part 5 "Masai Land": more wildlife pictures of birds, elephants, hippos, lions followed by scenes in a Masai village and Sakamoto investigating an old colonial house (Mpata on the CD).

·    Disc II part 6 "Avec Piano": a Yamaha piano is rolled out to a field at a Masai school in the country-side where the crew first have to sit out a storm before the children come out and through an interpreter get explained what a piano is and that a certain mr. Sakamoto will play some pieces for them. So he does (among them Bolerish from the Femme Fatale soundtrack) and the kids get to jam on the piano themselves a couple of times. They return the favour by performing one of their pieces: the final track on the CD.
Next there's I think a fault in the disc where Lennon's Imagine should be playing (there's a credit for it in the book) but instead some lyrics are shown in silence. This part ends with Sakamoto experiencing another beautiful sunset (Serenity on the CD) and saving his thoughts on a laptop.

·    Disc II part 7 "People with Wisdom": through an interpreter Sakamoto has conversations with first an old man, then a bunch of youngsters, asking them questions from his notebook.

·    Disc II part 8 "Encountering the Elephants": Joyce Poole returns to take the crew out in a landrover to a family of elephants. They are able to get quite close and she explains a lot about the group dynamics. At some point, Sakamoto plays the Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence theme with the elephants really paying attention but not being quite sure what to make of it (according to Poole).
This is followed by a little lecture from another scientist, Lyall Watson, explaining the current state of science regarding elephant language and emotion.

·    Disc II part 9 "Quest": back in New York, Sakamoto sums up his experiences and conclusions.

The film forms a sincere and sympathetic account of what little African nature and culture Sakamoto was able to encounter in those 10 days. Whether it got him any further in getting to grips with the perhaps unanswerable big questions he was asking and whether Kenya, a rather prosperous and peaceful part of Africa, is the best place to ask them, I'm not sure. It is a pity, especially with a supposedly "universal theme" like this, that only the interviews with the scientists are in English and that there are no subtitles other than the Japanese ones, making large parts of the film not that interesting to non-Japanese speakers.

The music appears to have been recorded quickly afterwards, just Sakamoto on his synths only using some recorded chants in addition. Some of those he provided an arrangement for (one strangely using a sound from the wrong continent, Australia), the ambient nature-documentary type music doesn't work very well without the pictures, but there are a few strong more composed pieces to keep the musically minded interested as well.

Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian

World Citizen

(*) 2003 Warner cd5: WPCL-10043

Ivar de Vries writes:
Although it also marks the 15th anniversary of the J-Wave internet radio station on which Sakamoto regularly appears with his own show, this single is an outcome of his anti-war project called chain-music. David Sylvian obviously shares this feeling and contributed some astute lyrics, included in this digipack release. He actually penned two 'World Citizen' songs, the first about a general feeling of unease about the state of the world, the second about the world suffering from specific events like 9/11 and the Iraq war. Perhaps ironically, the drawing of the world on the sleeve includes every continent apart from the two American ones. The musical material is a bit slight, Sakamoto's piano backing-tracks are hardly audible, the second song has a normal backing band and is typical of the sort of gentle, mid-tempo softrock Sylvian produces. The other song fares better with Sketch Show's sound effects but the best track is the final one, Ryoji Ikeda's remix. At least it conveys a more ominous atmosphere more relevant to the lyrics, whereas Sylvian always sounds the same, whether a lyric is about love, war or the telephone directory.

This professionally shot film provides a record of the 1995 Japanese tour supporting the Smoochy album, culminating in the Budokan concert which constitutes the bulk of this film. For the concert's multi-media aspect, a pioneering live web relay and the possibility to send in text-messages to be shown on stage-monitors, Sakamoto contacted Daizaburo Harada, who'd worked with him before in 1985 and also was involved with YMO's Technodon concerts. The abbreviation D&L stands for some loose themes associated with the concert like "Dream & Love", "Digital & Life", typical for the more innocent early days of the Internet.

The DVD has no separate menu with extras, instead they are inserted at various points in the film, for example at the start the E-mails Sakamoto exchanged with Harada, text-messages being shown (from Laurie Anderson among others), sequences of the whole entourage traveling/rehearsing and treating Sakamoto to his birthday party.
This tour most likely was his last stab at playing the pop star before turning to more serious modern classical work. He sports a striking white haircut, occasionally ventures out for a little dance on stage and heads a conventional band boasting guitar, bass, keys, percussion, soul-diva Kelli Sae plus on violin Everton Nelson who occasionally doubles on vocals. Most singing is done by Sakamoto himself though in his rather soft voice, sitting behind his trusted Yamaha grand.

Almost all of Smoochy is played along with assorted pieces from earlier albums, sometimes in different, extended arrangements, like with 'Dennogiwa'. This means the more serious side already present on Smoochy also gets a hearing, as exemplified by an excellent rendering of 'Bring Them Home'. On the whole though the atmosphere is upbeat, the band rocking along with the odd touch of soul and jazz thrown into the mix. Rousing versions of YMO classics 'Ongaku' and 'Behind the Mask' bring the show to a close, here and earlier Sakamoto also plays the synth sitting on top of his piano.