DJ Zhang to talk about old friend Ryuichi Sakamoto: He has always wanted to come to China for another concert

Interface News Reporter | Pan Wenjie

Interface News Editor | Yellow Moon

Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto died on March 28. A spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed his condolences, saying that "Mr. Sakamoto is enthusiastic about people-to-people exchanges between China and Japan and has created many excellent musical works containing Chinese elements."

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1952, Ryuichi Sakamoto studied at Tokyo University of the Arts and received a bachelor's degree in composition and a master's degree in sound from the Faculty of Music. In 1978, Ryuichi Sakamoto debuted as a member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra ("YMO"), which is known as a pioneer of Japanese electronic music. In 1983, he starred in Nagisa Oshima's film "Merry Christmas on the Battlefield", but it was better known to more Chinese audiences until he scored the film "The Last Emperor" and won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, in which he played the role of president of the Nichurian Film Association. While making this film, he came to China for the first time.

Ryuichi Sakamoto has a special affection for China. He once mentioned in his book "SKMT: Who is Ryuichi Sakamoto": "In 5 or 10 years, China will definitely become an existence that cannot be ignored." Chinese must not go against their own logic. For better or worse, they will enhance the overall strength of the country and push China's logical approach to the rest of the world. In 1996, Ryuichi Sakamoto came to Beijing Poly Theater to perform, and China's first generation radio DJ and club DJ Zhang Cheng met him. In the days when there was no e-mail, they exchanged faxes from the beginning, and they kept in correspondence for nearly thirty years.

In 2018, Ryuichi Sakamoto invited Zhang to Seoul, South Korea to see his "Ryuichi Sakamoto Exhibition: LIFE, LIFE" station, which Zhang hopes will bring to China. In order to choose a venue and meet friends, Ryuichi Sakamoto came to Beijing in 2018. Zhang Cheng arranged a small performance for him at the Jiuxiao Club, and Sakamoto Ryuichi played on a live tuned piano as a gift. This incident later became almost an urban legend in Beijing.

In 2020, the exhibition "Ryuichi Sakamoto: Kannon Listening Time" finally opened, and Zhang Cheng is also one of the curators. This exhibition is also Ryuichi Sakamoto's first solo museum exhibition in China. In the book "Ryuichi Sakamoto: Kannon Listening Time", Zhang Cheng writes: "No one will exist like Ryuichi Sakamoto. Every time you listen to his music or communicate with him personally, whether face-to-face or via email, there is a feeling of being purified by his world. The world of Ryuichi Sakamoto, a world of purity and purity, simple and rich. ”

"Ryuichi Sakamoto: Kannon Listening Time"

Back wave | Beijing United Publishing Company

2021-8

After the bad news of Ryuichi Sakamoto's death, Interface Culture (ID: booksandfun) interviewed Zhang by phone. The following is Zhang's self-statement:

Ryuichi Sakamoto has been to China three times. The first time was for the filming of "The Last Emperor". The second time was a concert at the Poly Theatre in 1996, I interviewed him backstage, and then we met. There was no email at the time, and he left me a fax number from his studio in New York. When I arrived in New York, he sent me a lot of his CDs from the studio, and I faxed him back. He was impressed by the first fax he received from Beijing at a fax machine in New York.

After that, we had some contact every year. Mainly every year when Ryuichi Sakamoto celebrates his birthday, I will send him an email. There are also some meetings, like the London Jazz Festival where he had a show, where I met him. In this year's birthday email, I sent a domestic December issue of the magazine, which featured Ryuichi Sakamoto as the cover, in which there was an interview with a domestic musician talking about Ryuichi Sakamoto. He must have been in very poor health in January, but the email was answered very promptly.

In 2018, Ryuichi Sakamoto was a guest in Jiuxiao and communicated with Chinese artists such as the Qunxian Band led by Chang Jing and Zhu Zheqin Photo: Zhang Jiu

Ryuichi Sakamoto has been paying special attention to China. Since the seventies and eighties of the last century, he has been a leftist among Japanese young people, with progressive ideas, very concerned about the Chinese revolution, and has a revolutionary romantic idea. His biggest connection with China is the filming of "The Last Emperor". When I interviewed him, he once told me that Japan is very close to China, so Chinese music is not far away for Japanese musicians and is easy to absorb. Especially in the process of composing the soundtrack of "The Last Emperor", he learned and understood a lot of Chinese folk music and cultural knowledge.

The 80s of the last century was also the formative and most important period in his personal musical journey, so he had a special affection for China and has been paying attention to all aspects of China's situation. During the epidemic in Wuhan, Ryuichi Sakamoto specially produced an online concert. Cymbals and other musical instruments made in Wuhan are used to play, which shows that it is very careful. Although he did not say it publicly, he actually quietly did some charity activities related to China.

It should be said that Ryuichi Sakamoto maintained an interest in various ethnic groups. He said something very important, he was not Japanese, but a citizen of the world. He wants to understand the culture of different countries and integrate into music. He has used a lot of Japanese folk music elements, and in the 90s he also collaborated with African musicians and South American musicians, and released albums of Basanova-style music with Brazilian musicians.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's life was short, but his musical journey was long, and he tried almost every genre of music except heavy metal. From the earliest electronic music to later jazz, then world music, pop music, experimental music... One of his most important compositions is classical music. His later change in musical style has a lot to do with his making film music, and his making film music is also related to making classical music since he was a child.

Not only did he experiment with a variety of different styles and genres of music, but each attempt had his own personal symbols – the harmonies he preferred to use, you could simply say "Ryuichi Sakamoto Harmony". He has always said that the musicians who have influenced him the most are impressionist musicians such as Debussy and Ravel, but he is Japanese, so these harmonies are also very oriental. Therefore, "Ryuichi Sakamoto Harmony" is a harmony influenced by the Oriental Western modernists.

What impressed me the most was his 2017 album "Async", which is not only his best album, but also unique album in music history. The production of this album was after he was first diagnosed with cancer, and he felt that he did not have much time, so the album was not very commercial, and there were many very personal, unclassifiable musical attempts.

The average person may not find his way at first when listening to this album, because this is not the way of composition in pop music, not a song, sometimes the sound of the environment from nature, more about his feelings about life and death. Of course, there are also some figurative things, such as Tarkovsky's film and the monologue of Italian director Bernardo Bertrucci "Obscured Sky". So this is actually a sound work of art. He also considered it to be his best album, and later he used the concepts and elements of this album to make some installations in the form of visual exhibitions.

《async》

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Milan Records2017-03-29

In 2018, Ryuichi Sakamoto did an exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, and invited me to come, and I hope to bring this exhibition to China. So at the end of 2018, he spent a week looking at the exhibition grounds and seeing old friends. I found a few friends who played folk music that day to give him a performance, and he was very happy to see it and went on stage to play the piano himself. We didn't even expect Ryuichi Sakamoto to play that piano. We didn't prepare for the piano performance, we didn't tune every day, and it happened that the tuner was also traveling during that time. If he goes to the theater to perform, then the requirements for piano pitch must be very strict, but on this occasion they are friends, not very formal, and he is completely temperamental.

In 2018, Ryuichi Sakamoto was a guest in Jiuxiao and communicated with Chinese artists such as the Qunxian Band led by Chang Jing and Zhu Zheqin Photo: Zhang Jiu

One of Sakamoto's most famous works is the "Tsunami Piano", a piano that was soaked in the water of the Fukushima tsunami during the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, and he said that it was "a piano tuned by nature", and his understanding is that the piano that is out of tune is the most natural and relaxing state of the piano. Perhaps tuning to the most accurate rhythm is not the piano's favorite look.

On that day, even if he played on the inaccurate piano, everyone present was shocked. I think only the people who were there that night could hear Ryuichi Sakamoto playing "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" on a pitched piano. Because his ability to control the piano is very high, no one will think that this is a tuned piano, under his hand, any piano can play the most beautiful melody, so I think that a little bit of inaccurate evening is the most perfect.

The exhibition was not easy to complete and was affected by the pandemic. At first, he thought about exhibiting a few works, but then he said that he would show all of them, so we also made a lot of efforts, and in the end, Ryuichi Sakamoto was also very satisfied and wrote us a particularly touching thank you letter. I'm also proud to have done this before he died. He has always wanted to come to China to do another concert, and he hopes to come to the site of his exhibition himself, although he has only completed the part of the exhibition.