Ryuichi Sakamoto Social Project

Originally released in 2005, Insen is the second collaboration album between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto and the second installment of V.I.R.U.S.‘s five albums series. Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album’s recordings are accompanied by an unreleased composition titled Barco. Initially composed for Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 2005 Insen tour, the audio material used in this piece is based on the subtle sounds of Barco projectors, whose tonalities served as a ground for the artists’ live improvisation.

"Travesía" is an album of music by prolific composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto curated by five-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. The compilation album features twenty tracks handpicked by Iñárritu, who famously collaborated with Sakamoto on his Best Picture-winning film, The Revenant. Taking it's name from the Spanish term for "journey," Travesía spans nearly four decades of Sakamoto's solo work and scores, with Iñárritu taking listeners on a one-of-a-kind trip through the iconic musician's career Travesía is the result of six months' work by Iñárritu, who listened to over a thousand pieces by Sakamoto in order to curate the album's 20-song tracklist. Focusing primarily on the musician's solo work, Iñárritu deliberately chose some of Sakamoto's lesser-known tracks in an attempt to appeal to both frequent listeners as well as a new generation of fans.

The long-awaited digital release of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Taylor Deupree's concert at St. John's Cathedral in London in 2014. Originally released as a double LP in 2016 by Thirty Three Thirty Three, in two editions, "Live In London" had yet to see a wider, digitally-distributed release as the LP editions did not come with a download option. Trailblazing Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto is joined by revered electronic musician Taylor Deupree on this live recording, documenting their collaboration at St John-at-Hackney Church in 2014 – part of Thirty Three Thirty Three’s flagship concert series ‘St John Sessions’.

Due likely to his other careers as a pop artist, producer, classical composer, actor, and fashion model, Ryuichi Sakamoto the film scorer has averaged less than one film a year since his delightfully melodic debut, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence in 1983. But the Academy Award winner (The Last Emperor) has clearly eschewed quantity for quality, and his often-chilling music for Love Is the Devil (the first feature by vidoegrapher John Maybury–a disturbing portrait of artist Francis Bacon and his dark, obsessive relationship with his model/lover, George Dyer) is no exception. Sakamoto has long resisted composing mere musical narration for his film assignments; here he gets inside the characters by using the diverse palette and electronic techniques gleaned from his often cutting-edge pop work. This masterful melange of samples, treated piano, electronics, and white noise plays like a modern horror masterpiece, an eerie techno-concerto that owes more to Sakamoto's days as a student of electronic music and the avant-garde than to his sunny turn as leader of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Think Bernard Herrmann displaced by an ocean and half-a-century of technology.