Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Lockdown Uploads

A musical statesman rises to the occasion

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Moon above the horizon, strange bulbous flickers of light in the foreground. This is what the screen emits while Ryuichi Sakamoto’s latest lockdown upload plays. Sakamoto, not unlike the slightly elder [Robert Fripp](https://disquiet.com/2020/05/03/current-listens-cello-ems-synthi-100-devs/), has experienced a calling during what the former terms “these times when things are not ‘normal.'” Both are sending subtle, quiet music out into the world when the world is veering back and forth from unwelcome solitude to public violence. A musical statesman — a statesman employing music — Sakamoto has been an active, visible presence during mass mutual self-isolation. In the past month, he has shared nearly 30 videos of subdued, exploratory sounds, from moaning [solo guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh6ty4Jxkig) to collaborations with the likes of [Christian Fennesz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brVH4rs1y8o) and [Marcus Fischer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNs5w3EHidw). Those team-ups are being collected under the rubric “incomplete,” the most recent of which, “Stealing Time,” features guest Kung Chi Shing, a Hong Kong-based violinist and activist. The music matches the imagery, which comes courtesy of Zakkubalan. There is an underlying dread, a droning substrate, as well as a surface of brief presences, pizzicato pluckings that come to merge with the background sounds.

Video originally posted on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVPt0vzrOfQ). More from Sakamoto at [sitesakamoto.com](http://www.sitesakamoto.com/).
More from at Kung Chi Shing at [kungmusic.hk](http://www.kungmusic.hk/works/kungchishing/). More from Zakkubalan, the duo Neo Sora and Albert Tholen, based in New York, at [zakkubalan.com](https://www.zakkubalan.com/).

Lauri Wuolio’s Drones and Percussives

Helsinki, Finland

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

When a track begins so quietly, and at such a length, that you take time to confirm it’s actually playing something, surprise is built in. The ears have perked up. The attention is focused. Slow wafts of drones build and fade, and then from way down deep amid them issues a bubbling, metalloid rhythm, one that dances atop the drone. The ear listens for correlations, how the warp and weft of the underlying current has some parallel in the speed and volume, the vibrance and shape, of the percussives. And then the metalloid presence begins to dim, and the ear traces it as it fades.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/kumea](https://soundcloud.com/kumea/yo-1-2-x-subharmonicon). Kumea is Lauri Wuolio of Helsinki, Finland. More at [wuolio.fi](http://www.wuolio.fi/).

My Back 12″s

Let the summer games commence

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Summer chores include collating and culling old records, beginning with the hip-hop instrumentals (mostly 12″s, but some full lengths as well). There will be little if any culling.

Current Listens: Dalt’s Voice, Mursyid’s Gamelan

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This is my weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)

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NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases

▰ Despite the title “Patch Notes,” this 15-minute video by Lucrecia Dalt is not a tutorial. It’s a full performance, a mesmerizing one, for expertly processed voice. Dalt is based in Berlin, Germany.

▰ “Origin High Brazil” is dense drones, somehow both orchestral yet solitary, from Parker Weston of Phoenix, Arizona. It’s the second track off the *Enohpoxas Blews* album, recored by Weston under the PKWST moniker:

▰ Gamelan-inspired, software-forged, effortlessly dreamy synthesizer figments from the talented, Indonesia-based musician Fahmi Mursyid:

Ress the Bell Long …

Welcome grammar

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

There is a certain irony to the word “press” having been worn off. Especially in such close proximity to the bell that the noun references, and especially since the phrase “the bell” shows no particular sign of ware. Nor, for that matter, does the button itself, the button one hits to ring the bell. So, two questions:

First, what is that circular item directly above the words “the” and “bell”? It looks like some sort of small coin, a mark of a secret organization, an emblem of some rank or other. Is it a form of welcome to those who recognize it?

Second, about that word “long”: It’s an adjective, not an adverb, and the fray to its right suggests, in parallel to the fray on the far left, that perhaps there was another letter there, though the shadows of the doorbell casing do taper off quickly. Would it have said “longy,” which is not a word? Would some letter have completed this phrase? Did the writer belatedly deem the grammar an issue, seek to remove it, and only get this far? The visitor has much to ponder in advance of the gate being opened.