Avex Japan Vinyl & CDs

Review: Originally released in 2017, async was the 19th studio album from Japanese heavyweight Ryuichi Sakamoto, breaking a near-decade-long hiatus during which he was treated for throat cancer. And it's incredibly dense stuff to dive into, with genius on display both in terms of theoretical approach to recording, and avant-garde thinking behind what a record could and should be. Of course, that's hardly surprising for Sakamoto, whose legacy as one of Japan's foremost sonic adventurers may still not be stated enough, even after all the post-humous repressings and tributes. On this outing, then, we have strange, otherworldly interpretations of everyday instruments, a heavy focus on playing with textures of sound, bits of artists such as David Sylvian and Paul Bowles reading texts, found noises from city streets and themes of mortality, and our difficulty in accepting that truth.