Ryuichi Sakamoto’s sound world isn’t necessarily pictorial, but it is visual. Discord is instantly recognizable as by the composer of numerous evocative film scores, transferred to a nominally abstract canvas. “Grief”, the longest of its four contrasting sections, brings a Mahlerian expansiveness to fragments of pentatonic minimalism as it builds, layer by layer, in scale and impact, underpinned by DJ Spooky’s subterranean atmospherics. The acoustic perspective is wide but shallow, as though the mixing had saturated the available recording space. This is felt most acutely in “Anger”, whose obsessive drones and percussive onslaught have the impact of an action sequence caught in freeze frame – all sound but little fury. “Prayer” opens with a chant idea on the lower winds, behind which actual chanting comes gradually into focus: the effect, while precisely gauged in studio terms, is curiously soulless. “Salvation” then combines reportage with suitably grave music, the latter assuming dominance in a manner akin to Reich’s The Cave. The opening motif returns, imposing if not convincing in its grand finality.
The CD, distinctively packaged, is ROM compatible, although the graphics on offer rarely enhance the sound and often distract from it. This is a pity, as Sakamoto’s music undoubtedly stands to gain from appropriate images. Discord, while not quite fulfilling its interactive intentions, may still be significant as a blueprint for Sakamoto’s future projects.'