Milan Records has released a compilation of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s solo music, curated by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alejandro Iñárritu.
Titled Travesía (the Spanish word for ‘journey), the 20-track release takes in some of the late artist’s lesser-known works, with Ińárritu having initially been approached to curate the project two years ago after collaborating with Sakamoto on 2015 film The Revenant. You can listen to the compilation just below.
Iñárritu spent six months carefully curating his selections and the collection, which was initially conceived as a celebration of the Japanese composer’s 70th birthday, is now being released as a retrospective of his career following his death in March.
In a statement, Iñârritu said: "When Jean Christophe Chamboredon, from Milan Records, and Norika Sora, Ryuichi’s manager, invited me to this project, my first instinct was to resist. Sakamoto’s musical universe is so vast that the responsibility to honour him by choosing only 20 stars from his complex galaxy would be practically impossible. But after finding out that they were planning this as a surprise present for him, I had no other choice but to accept the challenge.
"Even now, I keep discovering new elements in Ryuichi’s pieces that I’ve listened to for decades. The perception of his music becomes a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same. Millenary musical tradition breathing through his relentless innovation. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music will be fully alive even when the rest of us are gone. I hope that, by listening to this selection, you’ll be able to experience that eternal emotional waterfall."
Travesía is out now on Milan Records.
