ASYNC (RYUICHI SAKAMOTO, 2017)

In async, sound doesn’t emerge—it awakens softly, like memories in a drifting twilight.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is not simply a composer; he is a quiet storm, a subtle seismic shift within the tectonics of contemporary music. Born in Tokyo in 1952, Sakamoto’s artistic journey transcends traditional confines, moving seamlessly across genres—from classical to electronic, pop to avant-garde (Sakamoto, 2009). Initially gaining international acclaim with the pioneering electronic ensemble Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), he became a central figure in Japan’s technopop revolution during the late 1970s and early 1980s (Reynolds, 2005).

But async is not YMO. It isn’t the lush cinematic melancholy of his Academy Award-winning score for The Last Emperor (1987) either (Gorbman, 2000). Instead, async is born from a profound confrontation with mortality. After being diagnosed and treated for throat cancer in 2014, Sakamoto returned transformed, crafting async as a meditative exploration of life’s impermanence and fragility (Pollock, 2017).

Released under Milan Records, async resonates with influences ranging from the minimalism of John Cage and Morton Feldman to the spiritual quietude of Japanese Gagaku music. It connects deeply with ambient music pioneers like Brian Eno and Harold Budd, yet carves out its own sanctuary of sound, a singular refuge suspended between memory and silence (Toop, 2018).

Listening to async is entering a cathedral built of pauses and whispers. Each track is an exercise in careful listening, an encounter where piano chords resonate like distant bells, synthesizers breathe gently, and field recordings blur the boundaries between music and lived experience. In “ZURE,” fragile repetitions hint at an existential search, while “fullmoon”—featuring spoken excerpts from Paul Bowles’s novel The Sheltering Sky—subtly reminds us of our own transient existence (Bowles, 1949).

This is not music that entertains; it is music that consecrates the act of listening itself. Each composition unfolds slowly, deliberately, embracing imperfection, acknowledging the preciousness of every fractured sound. Here, Sakamoto’s async stands alongside Arvo Pärt’s “tintinnabuli” pieces, sharing an ethos that values silence and simplicity as gateways to emotional authenticity (Hillier, 1997).

Async is a sonic embodiment of Mono no aware—the Japanese aesthetic principle embracing the beauty inherent in transient moments (Keene, 1998). The listener is invited not merely to hear but to inhabit these fragile spaces, to accept impermanence as sacred, and to find profound intimacy in the spaces between notes.

Ultimately, async is not merely an album. It is a ritual, a resurrection through sound, gently coaxing us toward an inner pilgrimage—an intimate encounter where loss is honored, fragility is cherished, and the act of listening itself becomes an affirmation of life.

References

Bowles, P. (1949). The Sheltering Sky. New Directions Publishing.

Gorbman, C. (2000). Scoring the Indian: Music in the Liberal Western. In G. Born & D. Hesmondhalgh (Eds.), Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music (pp. 234-253). University of California Press.

Hillier, P. (1997). Arvo Pärt. Oxford University Press.

Keene, D. (1998). The Pleasures of Japanese Literature. Columbia University Press.

Pollock, B. (2017, April 28). Ryuichi Sakamoto Reveals How Cancer Diagnosis Led to His Introspective New Album ‘async’. NPR Music. https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2017/04/28/526919847

Reynolds, S. (2005). Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. Penguin.

Sakamoto, R. (2009). Ryuichi Sakamoto: Music Biography. Commons/Rizzoli.

Toop, D. (2018). Ocean of Sound: Ambient Sound and Radical Listening in the Age of Communication. Serpent’s Tail.