Day 75 - Ryuichi Sakamoto & Iggy Pop - Risky

Great song by Japanese keyboard player Ryuichi Sakamoto and American rock singer Iggy Pop. The music video for “Risky”, written and directed by Meiert Avis, won the first ever MTV “Breakthrough Video Award”. The ground breaking video explores transhumanist philosopher FM-2030’s (Persian: فریدون اسفندیاری) ideas of “Nostalgia for the Future”, in the form of an imagined love affair between a robot and one of Man Ray’s models in Paris in the late 1930s. Additional inspiration was drawn from Jean Baudrillard, Edvard Munch’s 1894 painting “Puberty”, and Roland Barthes ” Death of the Author”. The surrealist black and white video uses stop motion, light painting, and other retro in-camera effects techniques. Meiert Avis shot Sakamoto while at work on the score for “The Last Emperor” in London. Sakamoto also appears in the video painting words and messages to an open shutter camera. Iggy Pop, who performs the vocals on “Risky”, chose not appear to in the video, allowing his performance space to be occupied by the surrealist era robot.

YouTube: Risky, videoclip

Day 16 - Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian - Forbidden Colours

I always thought I hated eighties music, but this is yet another song from the eighties. After two weeks this project is already revealing some secrets.

I realy like the music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and I think he is underestimated as a composer. David Sylvian on the other hand is someone who’s music I hardly know. And to conclude todays post: I never saw the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (starring David Bowie and with a small role for Ryuichi Sakamoto). Maybe I should do that soon.

YouTube: Forbidden Colours, videoclip
YouTube: Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (live 1996)
YouTube: Trailer - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence