This March will see the reissue of BTTB, a rare record of solo piano pieces by Ryuichi Sakamoto. Above, you can watch a new video for the album’s opening track ‘energy flow’.
Comprised of greyscale, fog-ridden landscapes, the video offers fitting accompaniment to Sakamoto’s delicate piano playing.
The reissue of BTTB, which is out on March 1 via Milan Records, comes 20 years on from the album’s original release. It comes with liner notes from Japanese author Haruki Murakami.
In the notes, Murakami writes: "Personal and intimate music—somebody (an anonymous somebody) sitting alone in front of the school piano early in the morning, weaving a melody, exploring harmonies. Music that gradually fills a space with high ceilings that contains the wafting presence of rain. But music that leaves gaps where necessary. Once in a while, we need music like this and this way of being…no, perhaps all the time. We need it as much as we need hot black coffee at the break of dawn and a cat napping next to us in the afternoon."
Upon original release, the album – the title of which is an acronym for Back to the Basics – was a hit inside Japan but has since become hard to come by outside of the country on the resale market. It takes influence from the compositions of Claude Debussy and Erik Satie.
