He more recently acted in The Last Emperor (1987), also contributing half of the suitably atmospheric soundtrack album. Lawrence is the soundtrack to a film starring Tom Conti, David Bowie and Sakamoto, who performed the entire evocative synth score alone (save a vocal of dubious worth by David Sylvian in an alternative version of the main theme). (In 1990, The Arrangement reissued the tracks featuring Scott - about half the album - plus several more, evidently outtakes of the original session.) The LP varies from slippery, fractured funk to a duel between a grim, darkly atmospheric drone and assorted percussion it consistently scintillates, though sometimes in a curiously offhand way.

On 1981’s Left Handed Dream, Sakamoto effectively draws out and integrates his collaborators (Robin “M” Scott and Adrian Belew, as well as both YMO cohorts), who in turn get the best out of him. Though not throwing up as many sparks with them as might have been expected - what might he do with Bovell now? - it clearly shows him to be an adventuresome oddball rather than a trendy studio hack. While with YMO, he made B-2 Unit with the help of British reggae musician/producer Dennis Bovell and XTC’s Andy Partridge. Only surreal environment-conjuring on one track and musical cross-pollination on another hint at the avant-garde and world music aspects of Sakamoto’s later work. Presaging his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra (which he formed later that year), the record consists of electronic disco, commendably quirky for the time it was recorded but now largely dated, with some unnecessary guitar soloing - the chief guest performance on the disc, since almost everything else was played by Sakamoto. He continued after getting an MFA and, in 1978, released his first solo album, Thousand Knives. Keyboardist Sakamoto did his first session work during his post-graduate studies of electronic and ethnic music at the University of Art of Tokyo in the mid-’70s. The Last Emperor (Virgin Movie Music) 1988.Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su.The Sheltering Sky (Virgin Movie Music) 1991.Aile de Hanneamise Royal Space Force (Japan.Illustrated Musical Encylopaedia (Japan.Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japan.

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