Ryuichi Sakamoto meets Caetano Veloso, Iggy Pop, Jon Hassell, Dennis Bovell, Holger Czukay, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and more!

Last week, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s posthumous album Opus was released alongside an accompanying film. Recorded during his final concert in the fall of 2022, the album is an enduring testament to Sakamoto’s musical legacy featuring a meticulously curated selection of his classic soundtracks, iconic compositions for adverts, a song from Yellow Magic Orchestra’s debut album, a track from his final album 12, and three previously unreleased pieces. Listen to the deeply moving solo piano performance here and watch the film on Criterion Channel.

To celebrate the breadth and diversity of Sakamoto’s body of work, today we’re featuring some of our favorite collaborative projects from the Japanese composer’s half-century-long career. The most prolific collaborator out of the three members of YMO, Sakamoto once described his musical philosophy to writer-musician David Toop as outernationalism: “Being outernational is like Moses in the desert. There’s no country. There is just trade, transportation, communication and merchants, but there’s no nationality. It’s a utopia and I like it I don’t want to be Japanese. I want to be a citizen of the world. It sounds very hippie but I like it.”

In that same article, Toop praises Sakamoto for combining “his incredible gift for melody with less marketable concerns: political and environmental activism, his quest for a truly global musical language, and an open-minded curiosity about all developments in contemporary audio technology and music, ranging from Korean hip-hop and neo-bossa nova in Brazil to electronica and noise.” Sakamoto’s approach took him around the world to collaborate with masters from diverse backgrounds and musical languages including UK dub pioneer Dennis Bovell, Brazilian Tropicália legend Caetano Veloso, Korean video artist Nam June Paik, German sound designer Alva Noto, and many others.

Below, some of our favorite Ryuichi Sakamoto “outernational” collaborations from across the decades.

Cesária Évora + Caetano Veloso + Ryuichi Sakamoto – E Preciso Perdoar (1996)

Featured on Island Records sub-label Antilles’ 1996 Red Hot + Rio compilation, which was produced as part of the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series intended to promote AIDS awareness, “E Preciso Perdoar (You Must Forgive)” is a gorgeous downtempo tribute to the bossa nova sound of Antônio Carlos Jobim featuring Caetano Veloso’s poetically smooth Portuguese-English vocal, Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora, and Sakamoto’s psychedelic electronic production. The release was one of the Red Hot series’ most successful projects, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars for AIDS charities around the world.

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Iggy Pop – Risky (1987)

Co-produced by Bill Laswell, Sakamoto first album on Sony Neo Geo also featured Parliament Funkadelic bass player Boosty Collins, Compass Point All Stars’ Sly Dunbar, and the great fusion drummer Tony Williams. According to Laswell, Sony had originally wanted Peter Gabriel on this track, but he took too long so Laswell suggested Iggy Pop. Laswell: “I liked it. No matter what he does, I like Iggy. I think for me, it’s always a good choice.”

Ryuichi Sakamoto – We Love You (1989)

One of Sakamoto’s many supergroup-style releases, “We Love You” from 1989’s Beauty is an “outernational” cover of the Rolling Stones featuring bassist Pino Palladino, Congolese guitar savant Dali Kimoko-N’Dala, Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt, Latin percussionist Milton Cardona, and the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. The futuristic Congolese-techno-pop-rock sound is a true representation of Sakamoto’s concept of music without borders.

David Sylvian ft. Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell, Holger Czukay – Weathered Wall (1984)

Sakamoto contributes piano and synthesizers on this gorgeous collaboration between four legends from around the world. Watch raw footage of Sylvian, Sakamoto, Hassell, and Czukay in the studio recording Brilliant Trees here. The video includes a great moment where Sylvian and Sakamoto sit at the piano together working out a song. In another section, Czukay and Sylvian listen through a version of “Weathered Wall,” which includes samples captured by Czukay on a radio transmitter.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mix by Dennis Bovell – Riot in Lagos (1986)

From Dennis Bovell himself: “I started to record and I recorded a drum track that he wanted. He said ‘right, play that back’. As I played back something he’d be jotting on his manuscript paper (musical notation sheets) and then he’d say ‘Roll’ and he recorded that whole piece. Then I proceeded to cut it up and dub it and he was like ‘Yeah thats what I want’ as thats the dub thing that he wanted and that hadn’t been done until then as far as I know. And that track cause quite a stir. It was on B2 Unit his solo album. We did it in a few hours. Ryuichi was very quick and he knew what he wanted to do. He’d hear notes in his head, get the manuscript, write it down and then play what he heard in his head.”

Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto – Duoon (2002)

A meeting of extremes that works surprisingly perfectly, Sakamoto’s delicate piano playing meets the minimalist clicks and glitches of sound designer Alva Noto. Sakamoto: “Well, that was the interesting part of this collaboration because we had such different backgrounds. I’m fully classically-trained since I was a kid and he’s not. His thinking on creating music is, to me, much more mathematical, based on numbers. It doesn’t have to be Russian numbers, but…… That’s why I got to like his music, a new kind of music, so to me it’s very inspiring to look at how he creates music and how he designs sound and music.”

Ryuichi Sakamoto ft. Simon Jeffes (Penguin Cafe Orchestra) – Replica (1984)

Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s Simon Jeffes contributes cuatro, a Latin stringed instrument derived from the Spanish guitar, on this left-field ambient track from Sakamoto’s 1984 album Replica. Jeffes’ unconventional playing here is far more textural than on his melody-driven work with PCO and contributes to the machine-like sci-fi atmosphere, nearly becoming indistinguishable from the electronic samples and swirling sound effects.

Ryuichi Sakamoto ft. Robin Scott – The Left Bank (1981)

English singer Robin Scott is most known for his 1979 hit “Pop Muzik,” which featured then-unknown keyboardist Wally Badarou. Just a few years later, he would co-produce and contribute vocals on Sakamoto’s Left Handed Dream. One of the many highlights, “The Left Bank” is a sophisticated dance pop tune that brings together Eastern melodies with Scott’s iconic English crooning and a mysterious French spoken word vocal.

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Thomas Dolby – Field Work (1985)

Another collaboration with an English artist, “Field Work” is a lesser-known Sakamoto track released as 12-inch in 1985 accompanied by a short film. “This video was inspired by Japanese holdouts, WWII soldiers who did not know the war was over. The fictional character, Tenshi Tanaka, is played by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The beginning and ending are samples from Sakamoto’s ‘Field Work’, a single from the album Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia. Thomas Dolby’s character is credited as “Autograph Hunter” and the dog’s name is Callaghan.” Also be sure to check out the Long London Version.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Toop – Garden of Shadows and Light (2018)

An entirely improvised concert from Sakamoto & Toop recorded at St John at Hackney Church, London, 2018. Toop: “After we performed together in London in 2018, I messaged him with a suggestion for the title of our record, Gardens Of Shadow And Light. ‘Oh I like it very much,’ he replied. ‘It reflects Debussy and Zen.'”