Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Ryuichi Sakamoto has died, a publish on the musician’s official Twitter account confirms. The pioneering Japanese musician and composer, who first got here to prominence as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978, shared in an announcement on January, 2021 that he had been recognized with colon most cancers, 5 years after he first returned to music after remedy for throat most cancers. An extra assertion from Sakamoto’s administration firm, Commons, revealed that he died on March 28. He was 71 years outdated.

“Whereas present process remedy for most cancers found in June 2020, Sakamoto continued to create works in his house studio every time his well being would enable,” Commons wrote of their assertion. “He lived with music till the very finish. We wish to categorical our deepest gratitude to his followers and all those that have supported his actions, in addition to the medical professionals in Japan and the U.S. who did all the pieces of their energy to treatment him. In accordance with Sakamoto’s robust needs, the funeral service was held amongst his shut members of the family.” Discover Commons’ full remarks beneath.

Born in 1952, Sakamoto took up piano from an early age, composing his personal music as early as age ten. He studied on the Tokyo Nationwide College of Positive Arts and Music, the place he acquired his diploma in composition and his masters in music. It was throughout his college days that Sakamoto first got here throughout synthesizers, which might play an important position in his work for years to return. He labored via the late Nineteen Seventies as a session musician, composer, arranger, and producer for Japanese artists throughout a number of genres earlier than releasing his debut solo album, Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto, in 1978.

The seeds of YMO had been planted in 1977, when Haruomi Hosono invited Sakamoto and one other artist, Yukihiro Takahashi, to contribute to his solo Paraiso. That very same yr, Sakamoto and one other artist, Yukihiro Takahashi, had been recruited by Haruomi Hosono to kind a brand new group, Yellow Magic Orchestra. Their trio’s self-titled 1978 debut made them stars, each of their native Japan and overseas, and is now extensively thought-about one of many earliest examples of synthpop. Tracks like “Pc Magic” and “Firecracker” had been later sampled by early hip-hop and techno producers and contributed to the early mainstreaming of online game music simply because the video games trade was having its first actual growth within the West.

YMO’s subsequent album Stable State Survivor, initially solely launched in Japan, featured a Sakamoto composition referred to as “Behind the Masks” that went on to be coated by artists like Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton. With the discharge of 1981’s BGM, the band grew to become the primary music act to make use of the then-cutting edge Roland TR-808 drum machine on a recording. Within the span of 5 years, they launched seven albums, culminating their authentic run with Service in 1983.

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