Alternative
Milan Records reissue “1996”, the album Ryuichi Sakamoto put out thirty years ago, on 11 December. It comes newly remastered, on two LPs and double cassette, with the original artwork left as it was, and it is the first time the record has been pressed to vinyl in the United States.
“1996” was not new material: Sakamoto went back over pieces he had already released and remade them stripped down, arranged for piano, cello and violin. The Brazilian cellist Jaques Morelenbaum, with whom he would later form Morelenbaum²/Sakamoto, plays on it, alongside a group of violinists.
The original came out on 4 June 1996 and runs to twelve tracks. Among them are “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”, “The Last Emperor”, “The Sheltering Sky”, “Rain” and “Bibo no Aozora”: film scores written for orchestra, cut down to three instruments. Sakamoto died on 28 March 2023, aged seventy-one.
Text by Marçal Bonastre