Ryuichi Sakamoto
Heartbeat

Today I fished out from my musical hat a CD from 1991, "Heartbeat" by the maestro Sakamoto San.

Author of numerous works including many very famous soundtracks and collaborations with the most significant figures not only from the musical landscape, Ryuichi Sakamoto starts in this decade to slowly move away from the sound of his beginnings to gradually develop a sound that will be increasingly characteristic for its versatility and eclecticism.

The work in question is situated between the production of the first distinctly electronic experiments of the '80s and the subsequent one of the '90s characterized by a more intimate component and also linked to ambient music.

In particular, "Heartbeat" will be a diverse showcase of sounds and styles that features the happy participation of characters and artists from the most diverse musical and linguistic backgrounds, chosen ad hoc according to the needs born from the melody itself which, conceived in this way, required different and particular interpretations.

Just as no particular musical style stands out throughout the CD's duration, we can similarly notice a varied use of European languages such as French, English, Japanese, and even Russian, in a succession of rap, dance, hip hop, and electronic in which it is no coincidence that a common theme is still the scanning, the rhythmic pulsation of the heartbeat (hence the title), to which two tracks are dedicated, "Heartbeat" indeed, at the beginning and end of the work, the first being very rhythmic and cadenced and the other much softer and delicate, thanks also to the renewed vocal intervention of the great David Sylvian (already a cameo in the OST of "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" with the beautiful gem "Forbidden Colours").

As I was saying, there are no lack of much more meditative and inspired sound episodes such as the sweet "Epilogue" (repeatedly revisited afterwards in various soundtracks with always different arrangements), like "Song lines" and the poignant "Nuages", a traditional Japanese piece revisited. But also jazzy atmospheres as in the pleasant "Lulu" thanks especially to the collaboration of John Lurie and his alto sax (Lounge Lizard).

We also find among the performers the then more engaged African Youssou N'Dour, already a protagonist of a consolidated collaboration with ours ("Beauty" CD released a year before this one) and Arto Lindsay, an experimental American composer.

In this mixture of genres, from pop to electronic, to jazz, to ambient music, the resulting product is still homogeneous, linear, and coherent, and absolutely innovative, also because it is precisely in this phase that Sakamoto slowly leaves behind the safe harbor of traditional home music (still revisited) to embrace the wider international landscape.

Eighteen years have passed since the release of this work of his, but its relevance is still all pleasantly to be discovered.