‘We put his face back together again’: the groundbreaking show bringing Ryuichi Sakamoto back to life

Shortly before his death this year, the iconic Japanese composer worked on mixed-reality concert, Kagami – featuring new music, 48 cameras and magic glasses for the audience

Todd Eckert is explaining, in circuitous yet joyous fashion, how he first fell in love with the work of the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s a conversation that meanders through Eckert’s teenage visit to Preston, his years as a punk rock kid in Houston, Texas and his time producing the 2007 Joy Division film Control – yet ultimately always returns to Sakamoto’s astonishing songcraft.

“Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence was not the first thing of his that I had heard – it may have been Left Handed Dream – but it was the first thing that I totally understood,” he says, sitting outside a Brooklyn cafe in bright yellow trainers.