Ryuichi Sakamoto
Beauty

“Beauty” is one of Ryuichi Sakamoto's masterpieces, an intertwining of various stylistic approaches, new wave, nippo-fusion, art rock, trip-pop, evolving classical, sambas, lyrics, ethnic influences, between Japan, Africa, and America, the unmistakable East with the omnipresent West.

From electro-funky tracks à la Prince like “You do me” (Jill Jones) to the sweet nursery rhyme in “Amore,” or the melding of Africa and Japan in “Calling From Tokyo” (Youssou N'Dour), or America and Japan in “We Love You” (Music Mick Jagger and Keith Richards). I would also say the track “Romance” is fantastic, sung entirely in Japanese.
In these tracks, there is the almost constant presence of N’Dour intertwining with Sakamoto, alternating with Robert Wyatt, Brian Wilson, and Robbie Robertson.

Ryuichi, born in Nakano, an inseparable friend of David Sylvian (and that says it all), becomes a performer, composer, and producer, creating a multitude of albums, especially important soundtracks like “The Last Emperor” and “Little Buddha.” But the masterpieces are “Heartbeat,” which also gives its name to the track itself interpreted by a stunning "apocalyptic" Sylvian, and “Beauty,” which aims to demonstrate the ability to unite completely different cultures and sounds in a feasible unity with such Japanese-typical delicacy and their sacred and indissoluble traditions, enclosed in a breath of light and penetrating wind, of a gentle kiss that meets the profound gaze of the eyes of the soul, like a crystalline and fragile lightning bolt.

In these Japanese voices, you discover the past of a people in constant reflection with a calm vital spirit of reserve, sunniness, calm, intelligence, and great devotion. It’s a fantastic album, with the constant and persistent fragrance of lotus, in a very warm African sunset and the vast endless American lands, and you seem to fly over all of them at a surprising speed. Beauty closes with an extraordinary track, “Hinsagu No Hana,” among intertwining Japanese instruments and African percussion, keyboards and American orchestral violins, like the sketch of a canvas of progressive delicacy and pathos, eight minutes that capture you, taking you into a temporary world, the equivalent of a clean and refined dream.

Just look at the cover of this album, the nude body and the black and white portrait of Ryuichi in sweet contemplative meditation of what he has created and what the listening creates, eyes locked in infinity and the simple richness of a musical caress that brushes the skin until it encloses in the palm of your hand a fine porcelain heart full of life.