"A maestro in the truest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto's very existence has made the world a better place. I'll never stop being grateful for all he has given us." - Paul Rudd "After listening to the soundtrack of Bertoluc ci's The Sheltering Sky , drawn by its delicacy, elegance and passion, I knew I wanted to work with its composer. We greatly enjoyed working together. Ryuichi's versatility was endless. I never imagined a Japanese composer would blend so seamlessly with Bossa Nova like he did with Jacques Morelenbaum. His sensitivity knew no boundaries, as Music Sets You Free beautifully demonstrates." - Pedro Almodóvar "Sakamoto was such a genius, and such a delight to collaborate with -- and now this unexpected chance to come know him so much more closely.

I'd recommend this book to anyone, and most especially to those not yet familiar with his work." - William Gibson, author of Neuromancer "Reading Ryuichi Sakamoto's Music Sets You Free , I am struck by his wish to become a star in the night sky when he died. This wish is fulfilled many times over through this autobiography and his music, which he left to humanity." - Marina Abramovic "What a privilege to see the boy become a man and the student a master!" - Laurie Anderson "Over the course of this memoir, Sakamoto is honest about what shaped him: protest (hell yes), Debussy (the biggest yes), American imperialism (hell no), technology (it's complicated), nature (big fan), and practicing the piano (no until his final years). His work reached the world because of the felicitous glitch in the market that was Yellow Magic Orchestra; his work continued to spread, in part, because his elegant, stony hand was so well-suited to the movies. This magical book rescues him from the stale terminus of celebrity and delivers him back to the rich soil of the human." - Sasha Frere-Jones, writer, musician and music critic "In his expert translation, Sam Bett grants new and unprecedented access to the origin story and core creative concepts of a Japanese artistic genius who forever changed the way music sounds." - W.

David Marx, author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style "Ryuichi Sakamoto did more than just put Japanese pop music on the map; the aural bridges he built between Far East and West transformed the way the world listens to music. This memoir is as poetic and wide-ranging as his career, as catchy and moving as one of his songs. It's required reading both for Sakamoto fans and for scholars of pop music." - Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World "This captivating compendium contains two memoirs, appearing in English for the first time, by Japanese experimental composer Sakamoto, who died in 2023[.] Intimate, conversational, and animated by an infectious curiosity about art and the human experience, this more than makes good on Sakamoto's self-professed desire to 'make good music and deliver it to listeners in the best way possible.'" - Publishers Weekly.