Ryuichi Sakamoto

I’ve listened to an awful lot of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music over the last forty years. It started for me, as for many others, with his exquisite “Forbidden Colours”, which he plays one last time (delicately, fondly, forlornly) in the video here. The song was made famous in the film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. David Sylvian added lovely vocals for that go-around, and Sakamoto acted in the movie opposite David Bowie. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

Ryuichi Sakamoto acknowledged in 2021 that he was now “living alongside cancer”. He was too fatigued for any more full concerts, he said, but in December of last year he did record a few individual pieces that were knitted together to make a new sort of performance film. The adoring camera, and the formal elegance of the film-making does justice, I think, to the man and his music. On April 2, 2023, it was reported that he has died.