Customer Reviews

Chasm

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have just within the last year discovered Ryuichi Sakamoto's music, and I must say he is now one of my favorite composers. His songs are very easily accessible to the ear, invested with an emotion that is impersonal enough to touch such a wide crowd. He is never stagnant, always collaborating with many kinds of artists, pushing forward with experimentation, never letting himself become outdated.

Chasm, one of his latest releases, is a fusion of his acoustic work combined with modern electronic laptop-style production. It is a peaceful listen, sounding like Pan Sonic, Oval, and at times Alec Empire, Towa Tei, or Satie. Its songs are soothing and synthetic for the most part; and, despite the synthesized sterility, they can still penetrate the heart.

"War & Peace" offers a nice subtly glitchy and warm backdrop and confronts us with various contemplations about life, notions about human nature. This piece impresses me because he is asking us to think deeply about these things, an interactive approach to music that I have seldom witnessed. On "Only Love Can Conquer Hate," a 10 minute long trip into ambient territory, Sakamoto creates the most delicate beauty with a simple, quiet bassline and chords run through quivering dsp(? i think) filters. I feel this piece is trying to remedy the pain and stressfulness in our daily, modern lives telling us that it will be okay. This subject is also directly addressed in "World Citizen." His jazzy piano work is showcased in "Ngo/Bitmix." It is very nostalgic sounding chamber music combined with tiny electroacoustic techniques that snap so quietly, like a campfire ... and a tint of bossanova too. Almost sounding like a demo, but if anything else was added, it would sound too congested.

There are other songs that catch my interest: "Laménto" seems like it may be autobiographical (though I could be wrong) using samples of sheets of paper turning and foot steps. There is some R&B influence too on "Undercooled" and "+pantonal," as well as Japanese influence on "Undercooled" and "Seven Samurai- ending theme." His deconstruction of World Citizen is almost better than the original, a truly brilliant remix. And you can't say that about too many remixes (these days remixes can be so goofy).

So many electronic artists nowadays do not have much skill at composition or playing instruments. They rely on software, editing, or just sampling real musicians to get by, sadly; and although this technology lets almost anybody make music (we can hear music from so many people that wouldn't otherwise make music) which can be exciting, the musicianship is lost in much electronic music. Ryuichi Sakamoto is a rare example of true talent in electronic music today.

Sakamoto keeps pushing the boundaries - making some nice headphone spaces to retreat into. Here he brings his singular touch and sensibilities to electroacoustic music that still has his signature.

He is moving from being Sakamoto san to Sakamoto Sensei -- he's teaching us how to listen so we can appreciate music constructed with sounds that may not come from traditional "instruments."

I kept thinking this CD was titled: "World Citizen" since there are two mixes of that song on this disc - both featuring vocals by long time Sakamoto co-conspirator, David Sylvian.

Fans of either Sakamoto or Sylvain (both?) will find this a wonderful addition to their music library.

In 2004 music genius Ryuichi Sakamoto dropped Chasm, my favorite album by him to date.

Chasm is a mostly ambient album, with standouts being the spinning Chasm and crying Break With. But he starts out with a great "orientalist" hip-hop piece Undercooled, followed by white-noise Coro. I love how he challenges listeners. The "recycled" World Citizen is great. And the closing Seven Samurai theme is always a winner.

Sakamoto's career took off in 1978 with Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), which created the electronic pop genre world-wide. After YMO, he's best known in the US for a number of stellar soundtracks. In Japan he's been all over the place - the recent /0* series is full of piano and ambient tones.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's Chasm represents a diapason of Sakamoto's diverse musical repertoire. Released in 2004, the album is largely experimental, and showcases Sakamoto's progression since he first entered the electronic music scene in the late 70's. The album fluctuates across genres and often blends them, from electronic, to ambient, to glitch, to hip hop, to purely instrumental. Whereas Sakamoto's other works--his various collaborations with other composers or movie soundtracks--have tended to be either largely electronic or largely instrumental, Chasm allows a first-time listener of Sakamoto to easily access the entire range of his genius. Those already familiar with Sakamoto will be intrigued by the genre-hopping experimental nature of the album.
The first song, "Undercooled" sets an ambient tone for the album. The melody is subdued and ambient. Sakamoto parallels a violin melody with an electronically-generated melody that sounds largely like the theremin of the 1920's. The melody produced by these instruments layered in unison is looped and a electronic bass track is added, with Japanese rap lyrics transposed over the composition. The result is a very soulful-sounding mixture of ambient, electronic music, and hip-hop. "Undercooled" does not stray too far from something along the lines of Washington D.C.'s DJ Spooky with his "ill-bient" music which itself combined elements of hip-hop and ambient electronic music. His use of looping draws comparison to even the earliest composer to make extensive use of loops--Erik Satie.
The song "coro" is almost entirely a glitch piece. "coro" challenges the assumptions of traditional music and consists entirely of distorted clips and what sounds like static noise. There is a definite rhythm to the sound clips. Sakamoto's use of "glitches" is nothing new--glitching actually hearkens back to the early 20th century Futurist musicians. Spearheaded by Italian futurist composer Luigi Russolo, the futurists found musical inspiration in "noises" that would not normally be considered as belonging to the realm of music. Sakamoto's use of "glitches" follows this same strand of though, as "coro" seems to make computer-malfunction sounds sound good.
"War and Peace" is a reflective piece about humanity. The looping electronic melody is warm and calming. Throughout the song, various sound clips of a diverse range of people asking questions about the nature and history of war and peace come in an out and are often layered. Normal speech sounds act as a virtual instrument at Sakamoto's disposal. The use of "non-musical" speech is also nothing new. The musique concrete musicians of post-war France, notably Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, had experimented with interesting ways of splicing voice and speech together. Sakamoto's appropriation of the same technique makes for a composition that sounds calm and deeply intellectual.
Several of the pieces sound entirely ambient in nature. "Break With" and "Lamento" are both slow and drawn out, ambient pieces with occasional glitch and "popping" sounds sprinkled throughout. Both sound somewhat ominous. The ambient sound Sakamoto achieves is not too distant from a Brian Eno-inspired piece complete with glitches and intentionally "rough" edits. Again, Sakamoto does not simply emulate the archetypal ambient sound, but rather imbues it with an concrete, reflective quality present in his other pieces.
Sakamoto adds his own compositional touch to electronic pieces that draw from the likes of Russolo, Satie, DJ Spooky, and Eno. With his piano-filled compositions and glitch music, Sakamoto sounds like the middle ground between Satie and the musique concrete musicians. This experimental album is not one to miss, as it showcases the best of the genius Sakamoto's instrumental and electronic compositional abilities.

Great Album of a great Composer......Period. The people who know will get it:-)

What does anyone need to say? Sometimes Japanese composers are brilliantly experimental, and he is no exception. He is awesome. The only unfortunate thing: The song my GF wanted is actually NOT on the U.S. release, so it's a bit of a trial to track down. That said, the rest of the album is awesome. Because he's awesome.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's credibility is on the precipice with Chasm, a turgid unlistenable work of crud. Check out Coro and Only Love Can Conquer Hate, both sound like factory machinery at work. Dire, dreadful and diabolical. Stop being the artiste Ryuichi and have a go at entertaining. Your fans deserve better!