Fusing a number of world music styles with a synthwave base, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s seventh solo studio album brought in a number of guests, including co-producer Bill Laswell, bassist Bootsy Collins, and (for one song, “Risky”) the vocals of Iggy Pop. Most of the songs run no more than five minutes and change, but in those short durations, Sakamoto takes generally simple riffs and expands on them with flair, whether crunching out translated electrofunk or adapting electronics to fit with traditional instruments.
Most of the songs omit vocals entirely, but that serves to make the various genres which Sakamoto emulates and splices more easily identifiable. When voices are used, it tends to be in ways that add an extra layer of influence (e.g., taiko chants over dubby bass bumps), which would end up at odds with the very clean production and mixing presentation of the whole album. At once mellow and energized, with plenty to absorb even while the the music calls for listeners to just relax and go with the flow.
Scrambled Brains 