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May 11, 2017It’s full of church organs, hazy reverb, rippling synths and poetry about mortality and eternity, as well as Sakamoto’s distinctive piano, sonar bleeps and unforgettable melodies. It’s arguably the most beautiful record you’ll hear this year.
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The WireAug 8, 2017async is an exceptionally beautiful record, in the way that maths is beautiful, quite free of rhetoric or ‘effects’. Its coherence of tonality and timbre gives it the feel of an imaginary soundtrack and yet each track has its own internal logic and direction which means that it never sounds like a grab-bag of musical supervisor’s cues but like a proper album of songs. [Jun 2017, p.70]
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Apr 26, 2017async is the work of an authentically great artist that may well be entering a rich new phase of his 42-year career.
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May 9, 2017The tracks on async are more often gentle sighs of relief suffused with a reawakened wonderment at the beauty of simple sounds created by man made instruments and the natural world.
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May 16, 2017The musical language of Ryuichi Sakamoto is esoteric and also innately relatable. Ultimately, it is beautiful.
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May 25, 2017Understandably ruminative in nature, it’s a renewed sense of creative vigour which provides the driving force on a piece of work which stands among the composer’s best.
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May 1, 2017async is more closely aligned with his 21st-century experimental side and his ongoing collaborations with the likes of Christian Fennesz, Alva Noto, and Christopher Willits. But there’s a warmth and fragility to the album here that makes it stand apart from these works.
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Apr 28, 2017Ryuichi Sakamoto is back and shows no signs of being boring or predictable. For this, we should all be thankful.
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MojoApr 26, 2017The sounds of surrounding life collaborating with art. [Jun 2017, p.86]
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Apr 26, 2017Async is certainly not one of Sakamoto's most accessible albums, but if the listener is willing to devote several listens until it all makes sense, it ends up being quite powerful.
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Apr 26, 2017At its best moments, async combines Sakamoto's history in acoustic music with his legacy in electronic music.
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Apr 28, 2017Async gives the sensation of being inside an art installation, where everything you’re supposed to be thinking is spelled out for you on little white gallery cards. Async works far better when Sakamoto lets the music mirror that existential ambiguity.
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MagnetJun 28, 2017These existential sonic sketches are minimalist in nature but come together as an electroacoustic whole far greater than its composite parts. [No. 143, p.61]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 14 out of 16
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Mixed: 1 out of 16
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Negative: 1 out of 16
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Jan 9, 2018
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Jun 4, 2017