in 2021, home after a major operation for cancer, ryuichi sakamoto started recording sketches, like a diary, and named each one with the day he made it. this one is from the first of december, 2021. twelve of them came out as an album, 12, on his 71st birthday in january 2023. he died two months later.
in his final year he also worked on a book, named after a question from the end of the sheltering sky, the film he scored in 1990: “how many more times will you watch the full moon rise?” he called it how many more times will i watch the full moon rise?
this is the label’s own 30-second preview of the piece; the slider only filters it, as it plays. the marks are where his breaths show in a drawing of its sound.
