Apparently not content let the charmed saga of his 2017 masterstroke async simply end — even on one of the highest possible notes — the relentless Ryuichi Sakamoto is already kicking off 2018 by announcing a full-length of async remixes.
Several of the reimaginings to be included on Async Remodels have surfaced already, including Oneohtrix Point Never on “Andata,” Fennesz on “Solari,” Jóhann Jóhannsson on “Solari,” Electric Youth on “Andata,” Arca on “Async,” Alva Noto (Sakamoto’s collaborator on the Revenant score) on “Disintegration,” Motion Graphics on “Fullmoon,” and Yves Tumor on “ZURE.” And today, we have yet another preview of the album in the auspicious form of Cornelius’ remix of “ZURE.”
The pair of Cornelius and Ryuichi Sakamoto makes intuitive sense. Anecdote: While putting together my ballot for TMT’s best albums of 2017 list in November, I gave a last, list placement-solidifying listen to async one morning via Spotify while did work for my day job. async made it on my ballot not as an album I listened to many times, but as one I found stirring each time I listened through. So I was unfamiliar enough with the album’s overall structure for playback to finish without me realizing it — and for Spotify’s algorithm to take over and start playing stuff it thought I’d like. The machine played Cornelius’ “Typewrite Lesson,” which I’d never heard before, and for a little while, I wasn’t sure whether it was a track from late in async’s tracklisting that I’d never paid full attention to before, or something else entirely. (I thought its electronic voice fit plausibly and thematically with async’s actual pieces, but its playfulness a little tonally jarring.)
Async Remodels is out February 16 on CD and in digital form, and March 2 on vinyl (no word on cassettes, laser discs, HD DVD’s etc.) Check out Cornelius’ contribution — as well as album art and full tracklisting — down below. And if you still need to kill some time while you’re waiting, you can always go back to the top and read this news post again as many times as you want. I know that’s what I’d do!
Async Remodels Tracklisting:
01. Andata (Oneohtrix Point Never Rework)
02. Andata (Electric Youth Remix)
03. Disintegration (Alva Noto Remodel)
04. Async (Arca Remix)
05. Fullmoon (Motion Graphics Remix)
06. Solari (Fennesz Remix)
07. Solari (Jóhann Jóhannsson Rework)
08. ZURE (Yves Tumor Obsession Edit)
09. Fullmoon (S U R V I V E Version)
10. ZURE (Cornelius Remix)
11. Life, Life (Andy Stott Remodel)