Filmed during the production of Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, this concert marked the first public unveiling of Sakamoto’s new opus async, widely hailed as one of the best albums of the last year.
async is the work of an authentically great artist that may well be entering a rich new phase of his 42-year career.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2018
Ryuichi Sakamoto: async at the Park Avenue Armory 2018
After seeing Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, we couldn’t get enough Sakamoto. We were delighted to discover that director Stephen Nomura Schible felt the same way and had followed through immediately with this superb concert movie.
“In April 2017, Ryuichi Sakamoto gave a live US premiere performance of his first new non-soundtrack album in eight years at the Veterans Room of the Park Avenue Armory in New York City… async at the Park Avenue Armory is a straight audiovisual record of the concert, low on frills but shot with the kind of forensically crisp production polish that this absorbing, immersive, intricate music deserves…
Playing solo in front of a select, hushed, reverential audience, Sakamoto alternates between grand piano, vintage synthesizer keyboard and laptop computer. His professorial appearance is as formal and impeccably tailored as the music; his expression furrowed, his silver swoop of hair swishing gently as he bows in concentration. This is a concert movie, but unusually intimate and intense, with ultra-sharp high-end acoustics to capture every textural glitch and microtonal quiver in Sakamoto’s deluxe minimalist sound paintings.” — Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter