Latest / Electronic Music / Ryuichi Sakamoto - A Tribute
Transcript
- Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast about Electronic Music and all things synth. I'm Caro C and in this episode we are honouring Ruichi Sakamoto, Japanese composer, pianist, electronic music pioneer, environmental campaigner and much more. Sakamoto san's vast catalogue spans award winning film scores to minimal electronic music and he was part of Japanese electro pop pioneering band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Here, I speak with three musicians. First we hear from Richard Barbieri, a member of the pop band Japan. Then I spoke with Natalie Beridze from Georgia, who collaborated with Sakamoto on a track that came out on Monica Enterprise. And finally we hear from German music maker Carsten Nicolai, a.k.a. Alva Noto, with whom Sakamoto created numerous albums and performances and other pieces of minimal electronic music. To get us started, here's a taste of Ruichi Sakamoto's music, though only one of his many flavours. This is an extract from Taking Islands in Africa, which was a collaboration with the band Japan and appeared on their Gentleman Take Polaroids album released in 1980. Thank you for joining us Richard Barbieri as we honour the passing of Sakamoto san. Just wonder if you could start with talking about your work and how you came to work with Sakamoto san. We first became aware of him through Yellow Magic Orchestra. Obviously we were called Japan at the time and so we were interested in all things from the Orient at that time and we heard this band, what would have been their first album and that coincided with our first trip to Japan in 1979, I think and we met him there. In fact he did an interview with us for one of the big magazines there and had, you know, good kind of vibe between us and we started listening to their music and you know, their first album is quite, it's a little bit kind of cheesy in places, but intentionally so. It had a kind of humour in it and was looking at probably the way people see Japanese people and their music, but it was also quite interesting with the sounds they were using and the technology of course. So that's, that's when I first became aware. And then, um, later, well, a year later, um, we were in the same studios in London when Japan were recording Gentleman Take Polaroids and Ryuichi was recording the B2 Unit album. And when you talk about their technology, what can you tell us about the Yellow Magic Orchestra technology that you were aware of at that time? Well, they were kind of using quite complex sequences and they had setups using MC8s and MC4s with these kind of modular systems. And they actually had a programmer who was kind of like, I suppose, a fourth member of the band. So, being Japan as well, they were quite ahead of the curve as regards technology and I think a lot of the manufacturers there were kind of working in collaboration with them. Yeah, it sounded quite kind of complex to us you know, we were just kind of starting to work with very basic eight-step sequences. Yeah, would you say that your work was inspired by the Yellow Magic Orchestra in any way then? It's funny because you know their album Technodelic came out exactly the same time as our album Tin Drum and there is this kind of crossover that you can hear in some of the sounds. And it's almost by osmosis because you know, we weren't aware of the album they were making and vice versa. But I think that the big influence came when, as I say, Ryuichi was recording B2 Unit, his solo album, at Air Studios and that was being produced by Steve Nye, who became the producer of Tin Drum and I would sit in, in some of his sessions you know, in those days you could, you were welcomed into the studios to just go and listen and watch and I was blown away just by the kind of, the speed and the clarity with which he worked. He was just using a Prophet 5 and he was just programming everything on the Prophet 5. Bass, drums, hi-hats, snares, all the basses, all the melodies, all the atmospherics and for me it's the first time that I saw somebody actually programming because that's kind of what I was doing and what I was trying to improve myself with and to see that, see somebody else actually in the process of programming was very interesting. And the sounds he was getting from the Prophet were quite amazing and that's interesting for me, knowing him also as a highly trained classical musician and composer, how obviously he had the same depth and the same passion for the technology as well. Absolutely. And he never, like most kind of classically trained musicians, he never let that technique override his ideas. So he was quite minimal. Some of these classically trained musicians just have to show you their technique and their virtuosity, but that was never a big thing with him. He always played quite simple kind of parts really, beautifully melodic and the sounds that he programmed were like, programming acoustic instruments almost and he played them in that same way. So he played the sound as it should be played, very much like Joe Zawinul, who did that with a lot of kind of African sounding instruments that he made interpretations of on synth. So that was a obviously a big influence. Wonderful. Wonderful. And was there any other further interactions or yeah, meetings between yourself while you're in Japan? We would meet up. I mean they often guested with us. They came on stage and played with us. Ryuichi of course did the Old Grey Whistle Test session with us, did one of them, so he sat in on a track called Ghosts by Japan and I can't remember the other track but anyway, we did two on Old Grey Whistle Test. So yeah there was a continuing collaboration. I mean he wrote and played on the Gentlemen Take Polaroids album but in terms of social kind of interactions then he was much closer with David and they had a really kind of good relationship. So I never really got to know him as much as I did Yukihiro Takehashi, who I spent much more time with. Unfortunately he died in the same year as you probably know. And in what way could you speak to the work and legacy of Sakamoto san? Well the legacy is immense. I mean, from the amazing film scores to the solo albums, to the work with Yellow Magic, to all his collaborations. I mean, that is a life completely full of creativity and so I think his legacy will kind of last a very long time. I mean, even in those days, in like 1970s, late 70s, early 80s, he was the only Japanese musician that was known in the West, really. Everybody knew Ryuichi Sakamoto. They didn't know any of the, anything about the Japanese music scene, but he had the highest profile probably since Tomita. So I think people will go back through the catalogue of works and they'll find real great diversity and I think that is a strength to great artists and their longevity, I think, is the scope of their music and Ryuichi’s, I think, will live on for, well, hundreds and hundreds of years. Hello Natalie. Thank you very much for joining us today as we pay tribute to the wonderful Sakamoto san and yes, you worked with him. I know, yeah. I wonder if you could tell us a bit about your work. How did that happen? How did that come about where you got to work with Sakamoto san directly? Well it was kind of a miracle, still can't really, after so many years, I can't really wrap my head around it. But yeah, I was living in Germany, working there and one fine morning, I believe it was 2006 or 7, I received an email from him and he was telling me about his project, which was called Chain Music and it happened to be a vast compilation of different artists. It was like a fundraiser for environmental issues, I believe and he was asking me if I'd like to participate in this project of mine. I believe Antje Kruijer gave him my contact last time. I bet you couldn't believe it. I've got an email from I, oh my God. I mean, I just stopped in my tracks and I immediately replied something like, Oh my God, is that really you? Yeah, is it a joke? No, I really fell off my chair. I mean, I was and then, I mean, it's not about even being young or old when you receive an email and I was like a complete fan of him since I, since my teenage years, you know and the way he changed my perception of music and he saved so many miserable days of mine. I mean, what a legend and he replied very humbly, like he always did and the person and he was yes, it's me. Would you like to participate? And yeah, then I dug into my tracks and I just sent him a track that I’d been working on at the time and very quickly he replied saying i'm listening to him and I’m crying and I mean, this sentence alone would have been enough to keep me euphoric and ecstatic and feeling you know, the sense of accomplishment for the rest of my life. But, yeah and it turned out into our long and most like, fascinating correspondence leading to our collaboration with him. Actually, it was him who proposed to, maybe you want to do something with me, let's give it a shot and I was, I mean, come on, it couldn't have gotten any better. And then you know, those things kept coming on and on and on. Yeah. Tell us a bit more about the correspondence. What was it about, the technical side of the music? Was it bigger questions, deep questions? What kind of things were you communicating about? Well, basically we started to get to know each other and it was not always about music and it was like, where do you live? What do you do? Like, or your kids and stuff like this like and yeah. Then slowly and you know, the idea was that he asked me to kickstart the whole thing. So I would be the one who send him some ideas and you know, like technically speaking, like pads and stuff. So, because he obviously had to play piano over it, right? I didn't have much experience in collaboration at the time and he obviously could feel it from the very beginning and he would give me like piece of advice bluntly but yeah, very gently and he taught me so many things in that regard because I haven't done much with other people and I'm such a control freak when it comes to making music and collaboration. I feel like is about restraint in a way to the point when you deliberately leave space for others to contribute, right and you begin with like a basic premise and a backdrop to a future story. Yeah, I would send him lots of stuff and I think I was just trying too hard because for me stakes were so high and I kind of like wanted to show off that I can do this and that and you know that I can be versatile and then you'd say I mean, maybe, you know, take out this take out that maybe you know but at the end we came to this one track which I had. I just really had to make it work you know and I just sent him this pad basically was, yes, it was a melody line was already there, but it was obviously he had to create a melody over those pads and it was like an ambient kind of like set of pads and then he loved it. And he basically recorded him playing on the piano in a week or so and then he sent me the recording and then I built up a track, you know, like with some effects, but very very little so you can hear him playing and like you know pushing the night in the knobs and everything. So like almost you can hear him breathing there. So yeah and that was it. But I mean, he gave me advices and the way he treated this whole process, it was like he was not imposing his ideas. He was very, very gentle about it but he taught me so much about collaborating and so that my later collaborations turned out quite effortless. Oh, wow. So, in a sense, he was quite, he was a bit of a mentor, really, wasn't he? Absolutely, but he didn't mean to be one, you know, it was like we were equals. Yeah, it didn't feel like he was the expert and you were. No and that's the absolutely mesmerizing thing about him. So even though he was sort of contributing classically or with the acoustic piano, did you also feel all that wisdom or that creativity that he that he does that he did through technology? Oh, I did of course, but then in this particular track it was very, it had to be very transparent. Right. So we wanted to stay on this acoustic side more because already my pads were obviously produced in computer and through the software and everything and you could feel that it's not live played and then we wanted to keep it very simple and very transparent, so that his part, his playing, could really come through. Yeah, it's a beautiful track. It's lovely. Thank-you. So what did you do with the audio recording? Was there any processing or any treatment that you did with the recording? With his audio recording, I just added some very, very few effects. Yes, really just almost nothing because it was so beautiful, his parts and it was recorded beautifully. And you know, it's just a technicality kind of thing so that those two would merge together. So other than that, I didn't do much at all. Yeah. And then he was happy with it and it got released on Monica Enterprises. Yeah. Was that part of the compilation or was it just a single on its own? No, it was part of my album, Forgetfulness, and yeah. Wonderful, wow. And yeah, in terms of Sakamoto san's work, his legacy, his, what, it's a massive loss but the gift he's left behind of his work and his approach and his, humanity. What, how does that feel for you? Ah, I don't know. He was one of the most accessible and approachable human beings, absolutely incapable of self importance and pompousness, you know and he was so ridiculously generous as far as sharing his incredible experience with others. And just the immense body of work that he left and the amount of collaborations that he had had tells the whole story really. And he was willing to share his experience as well as listen to other composers, learn stuff from them and be open to new approaches and sound. And I think he realised that the change is the only constant and he never ceased to evolve or explore, like he almost had, like, this childlike ability to be curious and excited about the process of exploration, you know? Yeah. I thought it was quite interesting how he really did span the spectrum of, you know, he said he wanted to be just pure pop at one point, and it was, you know, short little melodies alongside the more, almost going into noise, there's some of his pieces. So in that sense, he really did have that really broad kind of palette, didn't he? Absolutely. And I mean, you know, this is the music that he composed for films and did soundtracks and everything. I mean, he's just one of the most versatile composers that I could think of. And really, you know, having done all that that he had done, obviously and then still not stopping there and not being like, okay, now I've done it, now I can rest or something. No, he never stopped and that's why I think he connected with so many other artists. And now we're speaking to Carsten Nicolai, a.k.a. Alto Nova and thank you for joining us on this special Sound On Sound podcast. So as we honour Sakamoto san around a year after his passing, you worked a lot together and made some amazing work and I wondered if you could tell us a bit to start with of how did you come to work together? How did that creative collaboration relationship begin? Yeah actually it started when we, the first time met in Tokyo, I didn't know, but he was joining the performance and after the performance backstage I got introduced to Ryuichi and on this occasion he was asking me if I would be interested to do a remix for him. That's basically the starting point. And this time he was working on the Morelenbaum album, the Bossa Nova album. I think it was pretty much very far away from my normal aesthetics of sound. But I said yes and he really enjoyed the remix I for him. And at this moment when he basically received the remix and I got this very positive response, he was sending me more material actually. He was sending me a huge ton and then I was not so much interested in the electronic sound. He was sending me, there was a tiny bit of a small piano melody inside and I decided to make one track just based on that melody, what was more or less the first track for the Freon album. And then we kept sending each other files. So he sent me piano recordings and I sent him back a track and that went over a period of a year and then suddenly we realised that we have a full album. I think at this time I was a little bit too shy to ask what should we do with this material? Then at some point we talked about it and said, yeah, if you'd like to release it, release it. And this album, we got a lot of requests for doing a live performance and basically another half year later, we decided that we do a tour together. But this was a completely different situation of course, because we never worked together in the same space. First we met here in Berlin and this was an incredible time in Berlin, actually. This was a very active years for Berlin. Yeah, what kind of years are we talking about? In the year 2000 he came to Berlin and then I set up in my studio, I rented a piano, grand piano and then we started basically rehearsing and recording and as well making plans how we can bring this to a live situation, but it's of course a completely different situation as recording in the studio. So this was basically the birthplace of our collaboration. Pretty simple in the beginning but at the same time, when this idea came up that we performing together, I realised that many of the practice what I do use, used to do in the studio, it's very difficult to do in real time, actually designing some software ideas where I had a possibility to do this in real time, what I normally did in a kind of offline situation, right? I asked two programmers to design, to program this programs for me and one of this program is actually we use for some time. It's a very skilled programmer who works with me in my studio. It's called Nibo and the software is called, we gave it a name Nibosen, because what it does is it's analyses the piano note on the tuning and immediately, I mean, the decay of the note basically, it extends the note on a pure sine wave frequency in a very specific modulation. And I had the possibility to choose, let's say, the octaves or the waveforms, and the manipulation of that sine wave, mostly sine waves. He used actually in this period, let's say this was one little software that I did, but this is where I was developing visual software with the help of a novel programmer and some live sampling ideas we had as well. So actually built quite a lot of instruments because in the time I was, maybe this was a very early time of Ableton, when Ableton was maybe just released. I mean, I was a good friend of Monolake, of the, of Gerhard and Robert, Robert Henkman, Robert of course and so I had a kind of better testing software already. Actually the early days of Ableton there was, let's say, there was not so much possible as today and specifically like a live performing, a tool for electronic musician didn't exist really except this kind of prototype of Ableton in this period. So I was basically designing a lot of software for MaxMSP in this period as well. Ableton was not connected yet with MaxMSP. So on one hand was the idea to perform the pieces we recorded, not necessarily in a completely different way, but in a, to make this possible that it's in real time happening and maybe even have some improvisation space and not have the problems of the video being the master. So we developed some real time software, what we always reacted on what we doing actually. So this was a pretty, let's say, pretty intense period of developing tools for performing this kind of music, yeah. Yeah, and I guess in a way then he was inviting you, it was an opportunity for you to innovate within the tools and instruments that were available at that time. In the period we started, Ryuichi was really a little bit on a different kind of mood, I would say, or track. He was more, as I mentioned, he was just finishing a Bossa Nova album and of course, he still did scores for films. But he was not so focused on the electronic part. I think in this period as well I was, did a little bit more research what Ryuichi did in the past and found the more electronic aspects of his work. Let's say it was not so, I was not so aware of it, actually. Of course I know that Yellow Magic Orchestra but I didn't know, for instance, a great album of him, the B2 unit, this album, what is one of my favourite albums of Ryuichi and as well as his experimentation with multimedia and electronic instruments. I did, I was not aware of the whole history of Ryuichi actually, but when he arrived, actually he had already some really beautiful ideas and as well, he programmed some live tools as well. But at the end we decided to keep it pretty simple, that he plays the piano and maybe has a little bit of manipulation going but the electronic part was basically more on my side, yeah. So how did that relationship, how did that trajectory, if you like, your journey together through music over the years, how did that change, develop, or did you feel it kind of stayed the same? Of course it changed I think, after the second album. I was much more, let's say, I had much more freedom and I felt a little more confident about being a little bit more radical with his sound. In the beginning I did not want to be disrespectful, I was a bit shy, but the second album is much more manipulative on the original sounds and sometimes I basically did a lot of editing on the piano and then the third album is already quite a big step because then we collaborated with Ensemble Moderne together. So with classical we expanded more or less the whole universe. Eighteen musicians, basically. Then we wrote pieces basically for this ensemble and made this album and, or the piece first called OTP. But it's more or less kind of short term for Utopia. And then I think after this we continued with another tour. I mean, because we had always this kind of slots of touring, sometimes it was in the US, sometimes it was in Asia, sometimes it was South America and middle America. So we kind of kept recording during the rehearsals and during the shows, new tracks and new ideas as well. Let's say, this was maybe the first time that we really started collaborating, in a way that we, the tracks been not planned. They've been basically improvised and then we made them two tracks more or less later. And during the touring as well, we been invited to Switzerland, to Bern. And in Bern, there was a very specific, special piano, what was in a music school existing, what was a piano from a very special composer what works only with micro tonality. So it's basically the full keyboard is only one octave. So we did recordings with this and I think this is as well, something what in the fourth album was pretty much a topic, I would say the idea of working with micro tonality, but not necessarily let you feel that it's micro tunnel, that you still have a feeling it's in tune because microtonality, everybody thinks microtonality would be necessarily something that sounds a little bit, like, uneven, or let's say, would sound like a lickety, or like a traumatic, or untuned. But we had a little bit different approach. We wanted to sound it actually that you don't hear this microtonal. Why was that? A challenge. It was a simple challenge. Yeah, because there are not many pieces that work with micronality what can still sound harmonic. Wow. It sounds like you spent a lot of time. Just in the music as well, you know, if you're performing it and you're doing touring and then that's actually building new material. Yeah. So there must have got to a point where there was a kind of synergy and there was new territories for you both. Yeah. I mean you have to know Ryuichi is an incredible artist, open minded person. He knows a lot as well. He was called he's a big music collector as well. He had this huge itunes library always traveling with his itunes library where he was always playing examples of really weird compositions and very difficult ones sometimes and I think we kind of got inspired by this kind of really let's say unusual way of composition methods or avant garde ideas, early avant garde ideas from the 40s or even earlier. Yeah, so I think we experimented a lot. Yeah. Wonderful. And would you say that he became more involved in the electronic side of things or was that always really your area? As we decided that we gonna make five albums, because we had this on the third album realised that maybe all the letters, the beginning of the letters can make another word and so we decided we make five albums. And we said, let's not radically change the albums, let's stay in this one domain. Maybe it was a, was kind of creating a certain kind of stability for us. What was necessary because by side of Ryuichi’s work and my solo work, we had many different kind of aesthetics. Like a bit like we returned home in a way to, to our sound, but we can do only together, yeah. And in the later period, I think it started pretty strongly when Ryuichi was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. And I think this changed a lot because Ryuichi was basically not so much interested anymore in performing existing pieces. So we started actually looking to improvise basically everything. There's one album called Glass, what maybe is a good example of that, where we basically, we never talked about anything, we never, we talked only, let's say, equipment wise, what we bring and what we want to do, and that we, that was in the glass pavilion of Philip Johnson, upstate New York that we want to use the pavilion itself, the architecture as an instrument as well. So we talked about such things, but we never talked about what we want to play and then we just reacted on the moment. So what equipment did you bring to that? Yeah, basically everything was related to the idea of the glass pavilion. So we had some glass instruments, glass balls, but at the same time we miked all the glass windows of the pavilion. And then of course, everybody had his kind of safe place. I had my, I think in this period I was starting using a lot of iPad applications, instruments, because they had as well beautiful, simple interfaces and I could design them, the sounds very well on the iPads. And then of course, Ableton and some of the Reactor from Native Instruments. But quite a huge variety of software, I would say. We more or less had a pool of Ryuichi had, I think, he had this Prophet with him, or this, I think, one of his signature sounds as well and he loves the Prophet 5, the old one. And since this was upstate New York, so he lived in New York in this period. The studio was very close of him for and he could bring quite a lot of equipment. I was a little bit more lighter. I'm careful about not carrying too much equipment. I like simple tools actually. Wonderful. That sounds wonderful. Are there any other tools or techniques that really stand out for you that Sakamoto san? I mean we both, of course, been super interested and Ryuichi even more, I would say, in new technologies. I think in the, in this period as well, there was no multi-touch screen so easily available. We used both actually, we used the Lemur. I don't know if this is something that people might not know anymore because it was before iPad existed. Oh, okay. It was a multi touchscreen device. What was not an instrument was more like an interface. This was quite crucial for us to design instruments who have intuitive interfaces and so we worked a lot on interfaces. I think Ryuichi was as well a little bit more interested on acoustic sounds, let's say miking, weird looking objects or in this one case was for instance, glass panels where it was with little rubber balls treating the glass panels and producing this incredible rich, deep tones between real instruments and electronic music. So, like, this kind of bringing these two worlds together on a very symbiotic and peaceful way that they kind of can easily work together without, that you have the feeling you can still separate the sound. Yeah and finally, I wonder if you can speak at all to what you feel the impact of Sakamoto's work and his legacy really, both with music and innovation, what the wondrous gifts we are left with. That's kind of difficult to say because Ryuichi was not necessarily a person but you can connect to one album or one specific sound because he has, he was a traveller. He was going from one world to the other so easily. So from, let's say, from classical music, scoring, film music, writing an opera, to being super experimental, have small improvised things, building instruments or sometimes he worked with instrument builders together, or programmers who built specifically for him stuff. But I think the most striking and maybe as well the most influential, what I personally think is that he never lost his curiosity. It was such a curious person, open minded always, as well, very open to young musicians. I mean he was always interested in new albums, young people who just released something, you listen to all of that and this is something what, for an artist I think it's a great example that you are not closing yourself, that you stay open. Not necessarily only in music, he was as well very involved in economics, environmental, anti-atomic power projects. So many, on so many different levels he was active and I think, so it's very difficult to mention now one thing, but I think it's more this kind of multi disciplinary bridging and not necessarily dividing the world, more seeing at one holistic idea that that's maybe what I think this is absolutely his legacy in a way. Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, thank you Carsten Nicolai aka Alva Noto. Thank-you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes and further information, as well as links and details of the other episodes in the Electronic Music series. And just before you go, let me point you to sound on sound.com/podcast where you can explore what's on our other channels. This has been the Caro C production for Sound on Sound.