Milan Records and the estate of Ryuichi Sakamoto have shared details of a final album from Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Titled Opus, it’s comprised of recordings from the late Japanese artist’s final concert, which took place in late 2022 without an audience at Tokyo’s NHK 509 Studio. During that performance, he performed piano renditions of a number of his past and more recent works. One of them, a take on the Yellow Magic Orchestra classic ‘Tong Poo’, can be listened to below.
The album, which will be released in immersive Dolby Atmos sound, will be accompanied by a documentary film, directed by Sakamoto’s son, Neo Sora, which captured the final performance. It’s available for streaming exclusively via the Criterion Channel.
In a statement about Opus after he recorded his final performance, Sakamoto said: “The project was conceived as a way to record my performances – while I was still able to perform – in a way that is worth preserving for the future. In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new ground.
“Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life. Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death – a performance that I was satisfied with.”
Sakamoto passed away in March 2023 at the age of 71 following a multi-year battle with cancer.
Milan Records will release Opus on August 9, 2024.
