One of Sakamoto's strangest, most uncompromising albums, Esperanto features music written for a dance performance by New Yorker Melissa Fenley.
Using weird, clipped samples of ethnic instruments, electronically modified sound bites, and distorted vocals, Sakamoto builds a very icy soundscape that juts out at the listener like pointy modernist architecture.
Leaving lots of breathing space in the arrangements for the dancers, this is music that stretches langorously over rhythms and snatches of melody.
"Dolphins" is bright and shiny with its synth bursts and backwards notes; "Adelic Penguins" is the closest Sakamoto gets to techno here, with bits and bops of a melody exploding over a propulsive bassline.
A far cry from the more symphonic Sakamoto, but equally intriguing.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Wongga Dance SongRyuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 06:19 | 14 MB | 33 MB |
| 2 | The "Dreaming"Ryuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 03:51 | 8 MB | 15 MB |
| 3 | A Rain SongRyuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 02:28 | 5 MB | 10 MB |
| 4 | A Human TubeRyuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 04:48 | 11 MB | 21 MB |
| 5 | Adelic PenguinsRyuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 06:06 | 14 MB | 36 MB |
| 6 | A Carved StoneRyuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 08:23 | 19 MB | 36 MB |
| 7 | Ulu WatuRyuichi Sakamoto | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 03:55 | 8 MB | 14 MB |
| 8 | Dolphins | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Play | 03:21 | 7 MB | 12 MB |
| 39 mins | 89 MB | |||||
| 39 mins | 180 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tsuguya Inoue | Art Direction, Design |
| 2 | Koji Kanemaru | Equipment Technician |
| 3 | Tohru Kotetsu | Mastering |
| 4 | Arto Lindsay | Guitar (Electric) |
| 5 | Hiroshi Okura | Executive Producer |
| 6 | Ryuichi Sakamoto | Arranger, Composer, Keyboards, Piano, Primary Artist, Producer, Remixing, Vocals |
| 7 | Naoto Shibuya | Assistant |
| 8 | Fumie Takahashi | Recording Coordinator |
| 9 | Shigeru Takise | Engineer, Remixing |
| 10 | Yas-Kaz | Percussion |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |