When Ryuichi Sakamoto met rock icon Patti Smith for the first time early last year, he asked her: 'What does salvation mean to you?' 'It's here, man,' she replied. 'Salvation is this moment with you.' Her Zen-like reply - which Sakamoto recorded on the laptop PC he was toting around town - so surprised him, he included it in the fourth movement of his latest work, Discord - Untitled01.
Sakamoto interrogated others he admired, including David Byrne, with whom he co-wrote the Oscar-winning film score for The Last Emperor. His answer, in the form of a 34-line poem, includes the plea: 'Save me from myself. Save me from people who want to help me . . . I am free of all problems . . . I am bliss incarnate.' Profound? Abstruse? Byrne's comment encapsulates the essence of Discord. A 'difficult' concept album whose inspiration was news in late 1996 of starvation in Zaire and Rwanda, it comprises four movements: Grief, Anger, Prayer and Salvation.
'The first feeling I got was sadness,' Sakamoto recalled of his reaction to the scenes from Africa.
'Then anger because I felt very frustrated about the fact we can't help each other. That led me to the question 'What can I do?' So let's pray. But praying is sort of nothing, so that led me to the next question, 'What does salvation mean to us?' ' The four movements on Discord (an 'enhanced' CD that can be better appreciated with a CD-ROM drive) are lyrical, but disturbing. The epic one-hour-long symphony can sink pessimists into a deeper depression or give optimists added spring to their walk.
How it is received depends on the listener's mood.
Though the CD will be released worldwide (except for Japan) in February on the Sony Classical label, Sakamoto said: 'It's classical, but not classical music. There's no genre.' Perhaps that is why his audience in Japan did not know how to react when he took Discord (released on a different label) on a 10-concert tour of Japanese cities beginning in January 1997.
In Hong Kong last week to promote the album, Sakamoto playfully imitated the reaction of his Japanese concert fans, with mouth agape, eyes wide open like a rabbit caught in headlights.