(BGM is also the title of a Yellow Magic Orchestra record from 1981.) He sucked his teeth. "I found their BGM so bad, so bad," Sakamoto said, using the industry term for background music. Odo told me the music had been chosen by the restaurant's management in Japan.) But this restaurant is really something I like, and I respect the chef, Odo." (Hiroki Odo was Kajitsu's third chef and worked there for five years until March. He is not in the habit of complaining when he has a problem with music in public spaces, because it happens so often. (Much of this is detailed in Coda, Stephen Nomura Schible's 2017 film documentary about the musician.) Since the late 1970s, when he was a founding member of the electronic-pop trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, he has composed and produced music for dance floors, concert halls, films, video games, cellphone ringtones, and acts of ecological awareness and political resistance. He is a hero of cosmopolitan musical curiosity, an early technological adopter in extremis, and a kind of supercollaborator. Sakamoto, 66, is exemplary perhaps not only for his music, but also for his listening, and his understanding of how music can be used and shared. (We were downstairs in Kokage, but the same music was playing upstairs in Kajitsu.) I asked a waiter if the playlist was Sakamoto's. It came from an unpretentious source - a single, wide speaker sitting on a riser about 30cm off the floor, hidden behind a serving table. (A Japanese tea shop, Ippodo, occupies a counter towards the front of the street-level space.)Īs soon as we sat down, the music pinned our attention. It is a split-level operation: On the second floor is Kajitsu, which follows the Zen, vegan principles of Shojin cuisine, and on the ground floor is Kokage, a more casual operation that incorporates meat and fish into the same idea.
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In February, I went to Sakamoto's favourite restaurant, on 39th Street near Lexington Avenue, with my younger son. I consider thoughtless music in restaurants a problem that has gotten worse over the years, even since the advent of the music-streaming services, which - you'd think - should have made it better. It took me a few weeks to appreciate how radical the story was, if indeed it was true.
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Few people knew about this, because Sakamoto has no particular desire to publicise it. The chef agreed, and so Sakamoto started making playlists for the restaurant, none of which includes any of his music. Sakamoto suggested that he could take over the job of choosing it, without pay, if only so he could feel more comfortable eating there. The issue was not so much that the music was loud, but that it was thoughtless. Sakamoto, it seems, so likes a particular Japanese restaurant in Murray Hill, and visits it so often, that he finally had to be straight with the chef: He could not bear the music it played for its patrons. in Claremontįor more information, visit YORK (NYTIMES) - Last fall, a friend told me a story about Ryuichi Sakamoto, the renowned musician and composer who lives in the West Village. The 102-minute film will open at the following Laemmle theaters on Monday, July 16: “‘Coda’ skips deftly across the years, incorporating intimate footage of the composer at work as well as archival footage from his earlier years,” said Bilge Ebiri of The Village Voice. The film is an intimate portrait of both the artist and the man. More recently, he scored “The Revenant.”Īs Sakamoto returns to music following a cancer diagnosis, his haunting awareness of life crises leads to a resounding new masterpiece. Lawrence” (in which he also co-starred opposite David Bowie) and won an Oscar for “The Last Emperor” (shared with David Byrne). Pursuing a solo career after his work with the Japanese electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra, he created a spectacular score for “Merry Christmas, Mr. Following Fukushima, Sakamoto became an iconic figure in Japan’s social movement against nuclear power. From techno-pop stardom to Oscar-winning film composer, the evolution of his music has coincided with his life journeys.
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One of the most important artists of our era, Ryuichi Sakamoto has had a prolific career spanning over four decades. “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda,” a documentary by Stephen Nomura Schible, is now playing through Thursday, July 19, at Laemmle’s Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd.