Shintaro Sakamoto

As a solo artist, Shintaro Sakamoto draws from breezy soft-rock, disco, reggae, and bossa nova — a far cry from the towering psych-rock of his former band Yura Yura Teikoku. Over the course of two decades, the Tokyo-based trio became a household name in Japan, but when they disbanded in 2010, the singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter/designer was ready for a change. His 2012 debut album How to Live with a Phantom offered just that, blending together sophisticated pop sounds from around the world with a hyperreal clarity that echoed the genre-mashing playfulness of the Shibuya-kei movement as well as Sakamoto’s own psychedelic roots. On later albums, Sakamoto used the fundamentals of his style — a summery vibe, slippery steel guitars — to create distinct moods ranging from the deceptively mellow post-apocalyptic commentary of 2014′s Let's Dance Raw to the nostalgic reflections of 2022′s Like a Fable.
Born in Osaka, Japan in 1967, Sakamoto was an artistic child who immersed himself in drawing and painting before picking up the guitar when he was 14. In 1989, he formed Yura Yura Teikoku (“the Wobbling Empire”), initially playing with a friend from junior high before working with two of his fellow students at Tama Art University, drummer Atsushi Yoshida and bassist Chio Kamekawa. The band began as a psychedelic garage-rock act influenced by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, but the musical chemistry Sakamoto established with Kamekawa allowed Yura Yura Teikoku to incorporate many other styles, including disco and electronic music, into their sound. In 1997, the band replaced Yoshida with Ichiro Shibata and made the leap from indie labels to Sony Music Entertainment, which released 1998′s 333. Produced by You Ishihara of the bands White Heaven and the Stars (of which Kamekawa was also a member), the album became an unexpected mainstream pop success that the band built on with 2001′s Yura Yura Teikoku III. Regularly selling out major venues in their native country, Yura Yura Teikoku signed to the tiny indie Mesh Key Records for their U.S. releases starting with 2005′s Sweet Spot. Sakamoto’s renown as a visual artist also grew as the band became more popular, and the retrospective Shintaro Sakamoto Artworks 1994 — 2006 was published in 2007. That year also saw the release of the band’s final album Hollow Me, for which Yura Yura Teikoku toured outside of Japan for the first time. In the U.S., Hollow Me was released in 2009 by DFA, which also issued the singles “Beautiful as Hollow Me/Beautiful” and “Dekinai/Sweet Surrender” that year.
In March 2010, after a 21-year run, Yura Yura Teikoku called it quits. Sakamoto began his solo career soon after, penning songs informed by the ’70s disco that had also influenced his former band’s later releases. In 2011, he wrote several songs for Salyu’s album s(o)un(d)beams before issuing his debut single, “In A Phantom Mood / Something’s Different,” that October on his own Zelone Records label. Recorded almost completely by himself — except for female backing vocals, percussion, and woodwinds — his first full-length How to Live with a Phantom appeared in July 2012 and won praise for its slinky yet wry blend of disco, soft rock, and lounge. Remixes of “In a Phantom Mood” by Cornelius and Ishihara appeared in 2013, and the following year, Sakamoto collaborated with Mayer Hawthorne on “In a Phantom Mood/Wine Glass Woman,” a split single for 2014′s Record Store Day. The mixtape I Think We Should Make Love preceded Sakamoto’s second album, that September’s Let's Dance Raw. A deceptively mellow satire of life in the 2010s, the album incorporated slack key guitar, blues, and Latin percussion and featured Phantom drummer Yuta Suganuma as well as OOIOO’s AyA on bass.
Sakamoto returned in 2016, first with the VIDEOTAPEMUSIC collaboration A Night In Bangkok, an EP of largely ambient songs inspired by the film Bangkok Nites, and then with a version of the song “Disco Is” featuring vocals by Synsuke Ono arrived before Sakamoto’s third album, the spacious, reggae and dub-tinged Love If Possible. Appearing in Japan in July 2016, the album received a wider release in 2017. That year, Sakamoto wrote two songs on Cornelius’ album Mellow Waves and collaborated with Devendra Banhart on Another Planet, a split single released that October to commemorate both artists’ appearances at Cologne, Germany’s WEEK-END Festival. In 2018, Sketches for Music, a collection of Sakamoto’s visual artwork spanning 1993 to 2018, was published in Japan (it was made available internationally the following year). Sakamoto and Banhart reunited in 2019 for “Volta E Meia,” a single by the Brazilian rock band O Terno; that year, Sakamoto also remixed songs by Chitose Hajime and released the single “Boat,” a collaboration with Eddie Marcon singer Eddie Corman. Later in 2019, Sakamoto toured Japan and embarked on his first solo tour of the U.S.
Early in 2020, Sakamoto contributed the lyrics to “Rakuen wo Futari de.” The theme song to the film My Tyrano, it was co-produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Kotoringo. Later in the year, Zelone released Formula, Ishihara’s solo debut album. As 2020 came to a close, Sakamoto issued a pair of singles, “The Feeling of Love” and “By Swallow Season,” that were collected as The Feeling of Love EP in 2021. In addition, he appeared on the Allen Ginsberg tribute album The Fall of America: Poems of these States (which also featured Yo La Tengo, Angelique Kidjo, and Bill Frisell). In April 2022, he wrote and produced Hajime’s single “Fune wo Matsu.” That June, Sakamoto released Like a Fable. His first album in six years found him leaning into the pop side of his music on songs inspired by everyday life during the COVID-19 global pandemic. ~ Heather Phares