Ryuichi Sakamoto – “Thousand Knives” review

Final verdict: 9/10 ★★★★⋆˙⟡

First thing’s first, this album cover is amazing. I wish I looked that cool, and I wish my outfits went as hard as Sakamoto’s. But man, he really shouldn’t be bringing electrical appliances into the bathtub. That’s an electrocution hazard, for sure. Additionally, no one man should have as many knives as a thousand – but I suppose Sakamoto was all about living on the edge.

I listened to “Thousand Knives” for the first time at some point early this year, and I won’t lie, at first I felt kind of neutral about it. While I didn’t hate it, it can’t be said that I liked it, either. But several months worth of YMO brainrot later, I get it, I do.

“Island of Woods” is one track I still fail to understand – I just don’t get what the objective was here, what it was that he was trying to achieve. A 10 minute sequence of non-musical sound and silence is perhaps intriguing on paper, but in practice, not so much.

However, that aside, all tracks on this album are rather brilliant. In fact, even if we ignore the fact that 5/6 of this album is absolutely fabulous, the title track alone makes the album deserving of all the love. “Thousand Knives” has the most ripping guitar solo known to man and is all around incredible – but that’s not to say the rest of the album lags behind, by any means. “Grasshoppers” is pretty amazing and “Plastic Bamboo”, albeit hysterical to listen to (the beatbox makes me lose it every time), is really good, too.

“Thousand Knives” is a brilliant debut that sets the tone for the quality work Sakamoto would go on to deliver in later years, and decades. 9/10.