Ryuichi Sakamoto works to be collected on a compilation curated by Alejandro González Iñárritu
A collection of solo works by the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has been put together on a compilation by Milan Records entitled Travesia. The compilation has been curated by the award winning-director Alejandro González Iñárritu. The album’s title translates to “journey” in Spanish.
Iñárritu had worked with Sakamoto when the composer provided the score for his 2015 film The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The project was originally intended to celebrate the 70th birthday of Sakamoto. Iñárritu said in a statement, “When Jean Christophe Chamboredon from Milan Records, and Norika Sora, Ryuichi’s manager, invited me to this project, my first instinct was to resist.”
He continued, “Sakamoto’s musical universe is so vast that the responsibility to honour him by choosing only 20 stars from his complex galaxy would be practically impossible. But after finding out that they were planning this as a surprise present for him, I had no other choice but to accept the challenge.”
Iñárritu went on to describe his love for Sakamoto’s works, saying, “Even now, I keep discovering new elements in Ryuichi’s pieces that I’ve listened to for decades. The perception of his music becomes a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same. Millenary musical tradition breathing through his relentless innovation. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music will be fully alive even when the rest of us are gone. I hope that, by listening to this selection, you’ll be able to experience that eternal emotional waterfall.”
Check out the album below.
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