Listening Session: Ryuichi Sakamoto - Beauty

Listen to Ryuichi Sakamoto's "outernational" 1989 masterpiece Beauty, which features Okinawan folk singers Nēnēs along with Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, Canterbury rock legend Robert Wyatt, bassist Pino Palladino, reggae drummer Sly Dunbar, and No Wave pioneer Arto Lindsay.

“One of my friends, he’s a philosopher and critic,” Sakamoto told writer and musician David Toop in Toop’s book Ocean of Sound. “He made a word: ‘outernationalism.’ Internationalism is still based on nationality. Being outernational is like Moses in the desert. There’s no country. There is just trade, communication and merchants, but there’s no nationality. It’s a utopia and I like it.”

Limited capacity. Early arrival suggested. RSVP does not guarantee entry.