Kordz x Sakamoto

The influence of Japanese composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto on modern-day dance music can hardly be overestimated. Sakamoto became well-known as a member of the synthesizer pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra. In the seventies and eighties, he released eighty solo albums with music that is seen as an important precursor to the house and techno music that would become popular towards the end of the eighties. In turn, these genres marked the beginning of dance music as we know it today. Tribute To underscore the importance of Sakamoto’s music and to show its timeless strength, the Swiss-Georgian producer and composer Alexandre Kordzaia (1994), better known as Kordz, has put together a tribute for the Holland Festival. Kordz x Sakamoto is a concert that features both early, well-known as well as lesser-known work by Sakamoto in completely new arrangements.

Kordz deconstructs the songs and turns them into compositions in his own style, which will be performed live by the Dutch ensemble Asko|Schönberg with Kordz on synthesizer. Pure and cheery Already as a child, Kordzaia was enchanted by Sakamoto’s sounds. One day, his mother came home with the album /05, on which Sakamoto played early work like Tibetan Dance and Thousand Knives on an acoustic piano. The music stayed with Kordzaia for the rest of his life. What makes it so special is its seeming simplicity, he says. ‘His early work is cheesy. By which I mean: uncomplicated, pure and cheery. Anyone who listens to it can hear it. There is no ambiguity. It makes the music uplifting, which I love.' Shared by Sakamoto Several years ago, Kordzaia recorded a track titled Sakamoto together with the rapper DRO, in which he sampled the melody of Sakamoto’s piano song Rain. Last year, Sakamoto himself shared an acoustic version of Kordz’ song on social media. So when Asko|Schönberg and the Holland Festival asked him if he wanted to collaborate on a new program with music by Sakamoto, he said yes immediately. From string quartet to disco beat The concert has the form of a collage. Kordzaia wishes to reconceive Sakamoto’s work from the seventies and eighties and will work with samplers and vocoders to rearrange the songs in new ways. ‘They need to sound just like I used to hear them in my head.’ He wants to create a sound world that in part takes shape on the spot and is not completely fixed in advance. This is why he treats the ensemble as a kind of loop station with repeating musical modules that he can turn on and off live. ‘For this performance, I want to create a broad spectrum of sounds that go well together. At times, this will make for pure soundscapes in which you eventually hear bits of Sakamoto. At others, you will hear more complete songs.’ In addition, Kordz wants to embrace the diversity of Sakamoto’s music, which is why this performance covers the full spectrum from experimental soundscapes to danceable disco tracks. ‘Thousand Knives should come to sound like Ravel’s String Quartet from the beginning of the last century and then seamlessly transition into a disco beat.’ Freed from genres It so happens that this diversity is characteristic of Kordzaia’s oeuvre as well. He is equally comfortable working with an orchestra as with a DJ set. He acknowledges these extremes may be hard for the audience to reconcile at times, but he mainly sees similarities himself. ‘Classical music has a beat as well. And disco is full of horns and violins. Pianos work great in hip hop.’ Like his musical hero Sakamoto, he does not let genres limit him. But this liberation did not happen overnight. ‘Long before making that song with DRO, I had this idea that the melody of Rain would go very well with a trap beat. But I always felt it would be a bit embarrassing to do. Luckily, I got over that fear, which was tremendously liberating.’ The performance also has a visual component, which is handled by the Dutch multi-media artist Boris Acket. Late last year, Acket was working with Colin Benders on Residency, an audio and video installation in Tivoli Vredenburg, which reviewers described as a ‘trip’. Now, he will be providing the visuals for Kordz x Sakamoto. ‘It will be a 3D experience,’ Kordzaia says, ‘in which the lighting and visuals underscore Sakamoto’s themes. The aim is to make the performance form a whole. The visuals help with the transitions from one piece of music to the next.’