A collaboration between two of the best-known names in ambient music, the Japanese musician Ryuchi Sakamoto and the Austrian electronica artist Christian Fennesz, CENDRE is a hushed delight from start to finish, containing stately, minimalist pieces such as "Aware," "Kuni," and "Amorph." Fennesz provides the weightless electronic backdrop, into which Sakamoto drops precise chords that ripple the aural surface like smooth pebbles dropped into a pool.

"Bricolage," a French word meaning to assemble something from available materials, is such a perfect term for the art of the remix that it's surprising no one has ever used it before. It's less surprising that Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work has always had a cool Continental flair despite the artist's Japanese roots, would choose such an elegant term for his swish remix collection. Focusing on reworks of material from 2005's back-to-the-roots electro-pop experiment Chasm, Bricolages features a cross-cultural and cross-generational batch of remixers including Cornelius, whose playful sense of pastiche is to current hipster Japanese pop what Sakamoto's Yellow Magic Orchestra was a quarter-century before; his take on the spoken word cut-up "War & Peace" is considerably lighter and groovier than Aoki Takamasa's tense, austere version. Former Japan drummer Steve Jansen, whose collaboration with Sakamoto goes back to the early '80s, contributes the skittering "Break With," bridging the gap between new wave disco and contemporary IDM.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's death in March, 2023 at age 71, left a gaping hole for anyone touched by his legendary compositions—a long list of people. Sakamoto initially rose to fame as a member of the much loved and pioneering Yellow Magic Orchestra, influencing virtually all genres with an electronic element, from synth pop to house to hip-hop and beyond. After YMO's hiatus in 1984, Sakamoto's focus shifted to his solo career and composing scores. He created a string of film scores for renowned directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Brian DePalma, Takashi Miike, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and others, all while composing music for video games, working on collaborative albums, and even writing a song for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

First collaborative album for 13 years from veteran female singer/songwriter Taeko Onuki and Ryuchi Sakamoto. In the early 1970s Onuki was a member of Sugar Babe along with Tatsuro Yamashita, during which time she first met and performed with Sakamoto. Simple album of Onuki's voice accompanied by Sakamoto's piano. Most compositions written by Sakamoto. Undertook a Japan tour in November/December 2010.

Composition for 1992 Summer Olympics opening ceremony officially released on the 1997 mini-album of the same name.
Ryuichi Sakamoto crossed numerous musical and cultural boundaries throughout his groundbreaking, highly accomplished career. As one-third of Yellow Magic Orchestra, he helped build the foundation for synth pop, electro, and techno during the 1970s and early '80s. He won several major awards for his scores to the films Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) and The Last Emperor (1987), both of which he had starring roles in. On albums like Neo Geo (1987) and Beauty (1989), he fused pop, classical, electronic music, and global textures and rhythms, working with an extensive guest list ranging from Brian Wilson to Youssou N'Dour…

Sweet Revenge is an amazingly sophisticated album in which Sakamoto sets the distinctive and heart-rending chordal and harmonic ideas of his soundtrack work to trip-hop and neo-bossa-nova beats. The songs are fronted by a succession of guest vocalists who each contribute lyrics which add up to an amazingly coherent whole–a mature meditation on love, longing, conflict, revenge and regret. As usual, Sakamoto was ahead of his time. By spotlighting the deep poetry of J-ME and Latasha Natasha Diggs, this 1994 album anticipated by years the introspective hip-hop diva trend popularized by Lauryn Hill.