Music Sets You Free by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Before his death in 2023, Sakamoto, a resident New Yorker for over 30 years, would gather a group of local artists and musicians, including Arto Lindsay and Laurie Anderson, for a meet-up they called "The Breakfast Club." With a new lineup, the club comes to Rizzoli in honor of Sakamoto's Music Sets You Free, finally available in English.

Join us for a panel conversation with Arto Lindsay, Dedekind Cut, and translator Sam Bett marking the release of the candid and beautiful memoir of one of the world's most influential composers. The conversation will be moderated by Sasha Frere-Jones, followed by a signing.

PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.

Can't attend? (please specify that you would like it signed in the comments box at checkout).

A bestseller in Japan, a remarkable reflection on making art, living life, and accepting death, from the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, the world-renowned musical genius and godfather of electronic music.

One of Japan's most influential artists and composers, Ryuichi Sakamoto was a man of multitudes. Perhaps best known as the Oscar-winning composer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and a founder of the groundbreaking electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto was a pop icon, an avant-garde visionary, a techno innovator, and a proud environmentalist. While his unique brilliance transcended mediums as well as borders, Sakamoto himself was curious about how he came to be the complex phenomenon known as "Ryuichi Sakamoto”—a journey to answer the question, "Why do I lead this life?"

Filled with candid photos, Music Sets You Free is the incredible chronicle of a life excitingly lived: an intimate, contemplative, and fascinating recounting of his life story as a musical journey, from his first childhood encounter with a piano to his rise as a global pop star and award-winning composer. Sakamoto's boundless curiosity led to myriad experiences: producing catchy yet experimental hits with YMO, starring with David Bowie in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, collaborating with pop geniuses such as David Byrne, Iggy Pop, and Brian Wilson, appearing in a Madonna music video, and even modeling for the Gap.

Throughout his career, Sakamoto was also a dedicated social activist, avidly protesting nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, and restoring a tsunami-damaged piano for his 2017 album async. While the pain of surgeries and treatments left him both emotionally and physically vulnerable in his later life, Sakamoto pushed through the pain to record his final artistic evolution into more avant-garde work after a transformative trip to Greenland during which he witnessed the effects of global warming first-hand.

Music Sets You Free is both a self-reflective testament and thought-provoking meditation on life, mortality, and the enduring power of art. It is the memoir of a visionary whose life and work embodied the aphorism Ars Longa, Vita Brevis (“Art is long, life is short”). The final published work from a creative genius, it is a rare and lasting performance in words that beautifully accompanies Sakamoto's eternal, moving performances in music.

Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett

Arto Lindsay is an artist, musician and producer born 1953 in Virginia, USA, and raised in Brazil. After living for 30 years in New York he has once again been living in Brazil since 2004. In 1977 he formed the band DNA, featured on the influential compilation album "No New York" produced by Brian Eno. In 1978, he joined the Lounge Lizards, later performed with The Golden Palominos (1983), and formed the group Ambitious Lovers with Peter Scherer in 1985. From 1990 on he releases records under his own name.

Beginning in 1989, he has been sought after as a producer, working on albums by Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Marisa Monte, David Byrne, Waldemar Bastos, Thiago Nassif, and Ilê Aiyê, among others. Throughout his career, he has been a voracious collaborator, working with visual artists, dancers, and musical artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Melvin Gibbs, Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Vito Acconci, Matthew Barney, Laurie Anderson, Animal Collective, Amanda Miller, Heiner Goebbels and Heiner Müller, Cornelius, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

In 2004 he began to make parades, thinking of them as an aesthetic form with important social functions. These parades make extensive use of custom-designed sound systems and have been presented at the Venice Biennale; the Portikus, Frankfurt; and Performa in New York. He has a continuing interest in using performer-controlled surround sound in concert.

Dedekind Cut is the project of Fred Welton Warmsley III, an American artist, composer, and producer working between ambient, drone, and noise. He first drew attention as Lee Bannon, producing for Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era before signing to Ninja Tune and releasing Alternate/Endings in 2013. He retired Bannon in 2015 and has since recorded as Dedekind Cut, releasing albums $uccessor (2016) and Tahoe (2018). $uccessor earned an 8.2 from Pitchfork and a place in Artforum's best of 2016. Tahoe and his score for 2018's See Know Evil followed to broad critical praise.

He returns on September 22, 2026, with Dede-K-Tion in collaboration with OJAS, for his third and final album, completing the ded trilogy. The record features guests Ryuichi Sakamoto & Torus.

Sam Bett is a fiction writer and Japanese translator of novels by Osamu Dazai, Akira Otani, Yukio Mishima, and Mieko Kawakami, including books shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. A recipient of the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award from the Japanese government, he is a winner of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize and the CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation.

Sasha Frere-Jones is a writer and musician from New York.