A brand new posthumous album has been introduced from the late Japanese composer and pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto. The album known as “Opus”.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A number of months earlier than his dying, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto sat down on the piano and carried out a remaining, non-public live performance.
(SOUNDBITE OF RYUICHI SAKAMOTO’S “TONG POO”)
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It was late 2022. Sakamoto performed choices of his beloved movie scores like “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” together with new compositions he had by no means beforehand recorded.
SHAPIRO: He was too sick to play the entire set with out taking breaks. By then, Sakamoto had battled most cancers for years, and he later wrote that, quote, “because of the exertion, I felt completely hole afterwards.” He died in March of final yr. He was 71.
DETROW: Right this moment, Sakamoto’s property introduced a brand new album of songs from that live performance, referred to as “Opus,” and can come out in August. Here is the primary music that is been launched, a gradual, meditative model of his 1978 traditional “Tong Poo.”
(SOUNDBITE OF RYUICHI SAKAMOTO’S “TONG POO”)
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