Description:
A bestseller in Japan, a remarkable reflection on making art, living life, and accepting death, from the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, the world-renowned musical genius and godfather of electronic music.
One of Japan's most influential artists and composers, Ryuichi Sakamoto was a man of multitudes. Perhaps best known as the Oscar-winning composer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and a founder of the groundbreaking electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto was a pop icon, an avant-garde visionary, a techno innovator, and a proud environmentalist. While his unique brilliance transcended mediums as well as borders, Sakamoto himself was curious about how he came to be the complex phenomenon known as "Ryuichi Sakamoto"--a journey to answer the question, "Why do I lead this life?"
Filled with candid photos, Music Sets You Free is the incredible chronicle of a life excitingly lived: an intimate, contemplative, and fascinating recounting of his life story as a musical journey, from his first childhood encounter with a piano to his rise as a global pop star and award-winning composer. Sakamoto's boundless curiosity led to myriad experiences: producing catchy yet experimental hits with YMO, starring with David Bowie in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, collaborating with pop geniuses such as David Byrne, Iggy Pop, and Brian Wilson, appearing in a Madonna music video, and even modeling for the Gap.
Throughout his career, Sakamoto was also a dedicated social activist, avidly protesting nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, and restoring a tsunami-damaged piano for his 2017 album async. While the pain of surgeries and treatments left him both emotionally and physically vulnerable in his later life, Sakamoto pushed through the pain to record his final artistic evolution into more avant-garde work after a transformative trip to Greenland during which he witnessed the effects of global warming first-hand.
Music Sets You Free is both a self-reflective testament and thought-provoking meditation on life, mortality, and the enduring power of art. It is the memoir of a visionary whose life and work embodied the aphorism Ars Longa, Vita Brevis ("Art is long, life is short"). The final published work from a creative genius, it is a rare and lasting performance in words that beautifully accompanies Sakamoto's eternal, moving performances in music.
Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett
Brief description:
Born in 1952, Ryuichi Sakamoto was a world-renowned musician, actor, and environmental activist. A member of the pioneering proto-synthpop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto was noted for his range, composing music for a wide variety of settings, including film, television, video games, commercials, and the 1992 Olympic Games. His awards include an Academy Award, a Grammy, a BAFTA, and two Golden Globes. Sakamoto passed away at the age of 71 in 2023.
Review Quotes:
"A maestro in the truest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto's very existence has made the world a better place. I'll never stop being grateful for all he has given us." - Paul Rudd
"After listening to the soundtrack of Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky, drawn by its delicacy, elegance and passion, I knew I wanted to work with its composer. We greatly enjoyed working together. Ryuichi's versatility was endless. I never imagined a Japanese composer would blend so seamlessly with Bossa Nova like he did with Jacques Morelenbaum. His sensitivity knew no boundaries, as Music Sets You Free beautifully demonstrates."
- Pedro Almodóvar
"Sakamoto was such a genius, and such a delight to collaborate with -- and now this unexpected chance to come know him so much more closely. I'd recommend this book to anyone, and most especially to those not yet familiar with his work." - William Gibson, author of Neuromancer
"Reading Ryuichi Sakamoto's Music Sets You Free, I am struck by his wish to become a star in the night sky when he died. This wish is fulfilled many times over through this autobiography and his music, which he left to humanity." - Marina Abramovic
"What a privilege to see the boy become a man and the student a master!" - Laurie Anderson
"Over the course of this memoir, Sakamoto is honest about what shaped him: protest (hell yes), Debussy (the biggest yes), American imperialism (hell no), technology (it's complicated), nature (big fan), and practicing the piano (no until his final years). His work reached the world because of the felicitous glitch in the market that was Yellow Magic Orchestra; his work continued to spread, in part, because his elegant, stony hand was so well-suited to the movies. This magical book rescues him from the stale terminus of celebrity and delivers him back to the rich soil of the human." - Sasha Frere-Jones, writer, musician and music critic
"In his expert translation, Sam Bett grants new and unprecedented access to the origin story and core creative concepts of a Japanese artistic genius who forever changed the way music sounds." - W. David Marx, author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style
"Ryuichi Sakamoto did more than just put Japanese pop music on the map; the aural bridges he built between Far East and West transformed the way the world listens to music. This memoir is as poetic and wide-ranging as his career, as catchy and moving as one of his songs. It's required reading both for Sakamoto fans and for scholars of pop music." - Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World
"This captivating compendium contains two memoirs, appearing in English for the first time, by Japanese experimental composer Sakamoto, who died in 2023[...] Intimate, conversational, and animated by an infectious curiosity about art and the human experience, this more than makes good on Sakamoto's self-professed desire to 'make good music and deliver it to listeners in the best way possible.'"
- Publishers Weekly