"A: I wanted to follow the philosophy of John Cage, that there's no boundary between sound and noise. I have never been able to accomplish that before as an artist. I've used noise a lot in the past. I think with this, I have, I hope, truly focused on deconstructing that boundary.
Q: I know Debussy and Satie are inspirations. You did an aptly titled album in 1997 called Discord that you made as your introduction to classical music. Do you think you bring something to classical music that hasn't been there before?
A: The classical background of mine is always there. Sometimes it's more obvious than others. I feel strange saying this about myself, but I have many aspects to my sound — many faces or sides, if you will. I think my love of techno, world music, bossa nova, whatever, it all comes out. This is all me. Certain audiences claim me for their own, some from electro pop, some just soundtracks. There are people who know me for opera. But even the music of Yellow Magic Orchestra, which was, what, some 30 years ago, you can hear elements of symphonic music." (from an interview with. A.D. Amorosi, 2010)
Discord is a "multimedia" project by Riyuichi Sakamoto from 1998. It has been developed with the collaboration of DJ Spooky, David Torn and "The Orchestra", conducted by Yutaka Sado. Released in 1998, it was composed of an audio CD with a blue pseudo-monochrome cover, which presented a composition divided in four tracks, and offered an audiovisual counterpoint when played on a computer.
More can be seen on the project's website.
Ryūichi Sakamoto, Discord
Sony Classical, 1998
01. Grief
02. Anger
03. Prayer
04. Salvation
.zip