By Jack Rafferty
Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final album is 12. He tragically lost his long battle with cancer in 2023. Sakamoto is the first Japanese composer to win an Academy Award for his score of The Last Emperor. His career is diverse and spans multitudes. He was an activist in many spheres, participating in the Japanese University Protests at the end of the 1960s, environmentalism, and much more. He was on the cutting edge of many genres, including neoclassical, electronic, electro-funk, and techno, just to name a few.
This record, 12, very much feels like a meditation. Sakamoto is navigating the ethereal and dense thoughtspace of one’s own mortality. The album itself seems a practice in a sonic version of Jisei, death poetry reflecting upon life. It is precisely that, reflective, not sentimental or cloying. Sakamoto’s soft yet labored breaths are persistent throughout the recordings, and they seem as though they were a part of the composition, a constant reminder to the listener. The profoundness of each moment of this album is hard to grasp. The music that Sakamoto composed throughout his life is what he, in his own words, wished it to be, “meaningful work.” The last fading moments linger only briefly, the sound of chimes in wind.
Akikaze ya Autumn wind
hyorohyoro yama no the mountain’s shadow
kagebōshi. quivering.
—Kobayashi Issa
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