Ayreheart

Ayreheart

Centuries Collide

Ronn McFarlane: lute

Will Morris: colascione (bass lute), bass guitar, violin

Mattias Rucht: percussion

Saturday, January 12, 2019 

Pittsburgh, Synod Hall

 

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda

It's hard to say why this portrait film, made by Stephen Nomura Schible, refers in its title to an album that's 35 years old, but however, the title fits. A coda is the closing part of a symphony or suite movement or of a single piece of music, and this is -- probably -- what we get here. Ryuichi Sakamoto, piano wunderkind, co-founder of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, composer of countless movie scores, solo records and collaborations with numerous musicians and part-time actor, is 67 now and doesn't need to prove anything to anybody anywhere anymore.

Sakamoto is also known as an environmental activist and uses his popularity in Japan for campaigning against nuclear power. Consequently, the film opens with pictures of the Fukushima disaster and leads to Sakamoto, discovering and playing a ruined Yamaha grand that got into the water during a tsunami. It's still playable and sounds, let's say: interesting. But it is captivating to watch him checking out what kind of sounds this piano can produce for him -- sounds you couldn't get from a undestroyed instrument. This again leads to Sakamoto in the studio, preparing a piano.

It is this what makes this movie worth watching: It has a lot of time to follow its subject, but it leaves it up to you to draw conclusions from it. The film has no comments, Sakamoto himself doesn't say very much, so the film concentrates fully on what he does. Of course there are some cutbacks to old times -- snippets from YMO's "Public Pressure" tour (with Sakamoto's former wife, Akiko Yano, singing), his contribution to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and some other movies (acting is not really his strong point, sorry to have to say that), some other companions he collaborated with over the years. Except some short mentions of his recent illness (in 2014, cancer of the throat was discovered, and this left some traces), the film doesn't say much about the private Sakamoto, his family, wife, children, friends; apparently he wants to keep his private life private.

But that doesn't do a harm. The most interesting moments in Coda are always to see this guy working in his studio (he has two, one in Tokyo and one in New York), checking out singing bowls or putting samples of nature sounds he loves to collect into compositions. Not all of his compositions are masterpieces, but Sakamoto always has an inerrant feeling whether a sound fits into a composition or not. However, it's obvious that the piano is his main instrument, all his music is thought from there. And he has this Japanese way of hiding highly interesting or melodious stuff behind walls of scratchy or otherways unpleasant sounds which need an active listener. You can't listen to most of Sakamoto's music in the background.

At a reasonable price the DVD or BlueRay is available only in the UK; for some reason not in the US, and you have to sign to a subscription channel to watch it online. It's also available with a live-taped presentation of his album Async. You can watch the trailer here.

(This review was first published on manafonistas.de)

Medienphrasen 2018

Wie jedes Jahr meine Blütenlese der abgenudeltsten Phrasen in deutschen und amerikanischen Medien:

Drehscheibe
mit Hochdruck
fieberhaft
gekrönte Häupter
volle Auftragsbücher
Wirtschaft brummt
herbe Schlappe
einfache Leute
Storytelling
Gemengelage
guter Tag für Deutschland
nachbessern
Kuh noch nicht vom Eis
verschärfte Mietpreisbremse
abgehängt
to go
dystopic/dystopisch
Wahlschlappe
Zitterpartie
gläserne Decke/glass ceiling
Trauma/traumatisiert
christlich-jüdisches Abendland
X is the new Y
Narrative/Narrativ
Personaler
Kampfabstimmung
Urgestein
neu renoviert
forderte X Tote
hochkarätig
Masterplan
entzaubern
wrds without vwls
Framing
Silo
Chores
rote Linie überschreiten
sprachgewaltiger Autor
krachend scheitern
toxisch/toxic
kühles Nass
rocken
gefühlt
Overton-Fenster/window
Rückführung
all in
unterkomplex
kuratieren
den Stecker ziehen/pull the plug

Letzteres täte ich gern, aber ich fürchte, ich werde den Strom der Medienphrasen auch 2019 wieder zu kuratieren haben.