async

Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'async', his first solo album after recovering from cancer, was conceived as a score for an imaginary Andrei Tarkovsky film. The work explores concepts of asynchronicity and mortality by juxtaposing field recordings, out-of-tune pianos, and unconventional acoustic sources with sparse electronic textures. Its structure intentionally blurs the distinction between noise and music, using the coexistence of unsynchronized sounds to create a meditative, and at times dissonant, reflection on life and human interaction.