hypersongs

Shintaro Sakamoto

The Osaka-born former frontman of Yura Yura Teikoku, whose 2014 solo album Let's Dance Raw includes "You Can Be a Robot, Too", sung with a children's choir.

Yura Yura Teikoku

Shintaro Sakamoto, born on September 9, 1967 in Osaka, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and producer, active since 1989. He founded Yura Yura Teikoku that year with the drummer Atsushi Yoshida and the bassist Chiyo Kamekawa, all students at Tama Art University. The band used independent labels until 1997, then Sony Music Entertainment and DFA Records, released 21 albums between 1989 and 2010, and disbanded on March 31, 2010. Their statement read, now that the band has reached a record high, we felt it was time to finish, as Time Out Tokyo reported in 2014. Audio Snobbery notes that their first overseas show came after about 15 years, in New York.

His solo albums are How to Live with a Phantom (2011; Audio Snobbery says 2012), Let's Dance Raw (2014), Love If Possible (2016), Like a Fable (2022) and Yoo-hoo (2026); his Bandcamp also lists The Feeling of Love. Wikipedia describes the first as soft, groovy, mellow funk with Todd Rundgren comparisons. Time Out Tokyo wrote in August 2014 that since going solo he had stopped playing concerts and worked without industry deadlines, though setlist.fm now lists 47 setlists from 2017 to 2026.

Let's Dance Raw

Let's Dance Raw was released on May 28, 2014 on his own Zelone Records, with a global release through Other Music Recording Co. in New York in September 2014. Sakamoto wrote and produced it, with Soichiro Nakamura recording, mixing and mastering at Peace Music in Tokyo. He sang and played guitars, steel guitar, banjo, cuica, vocoder and bass; AYA played bass and electric piano, Yuta Suganuma drums, Tetsu Nishiuchi flute and tenor sax, and Hiroshi Hatsuyama vibraphone. He also did the illustration and design. Time Out Tokyo described a science-fiction concept, a bleak mood under upbeat tropical-sounding music, with steel guitar and processed insect-voice choruses; Sakamoto said he wanted to depict tragic things and gave them a coating of science fiction. Audio Snobbery's Otacon called it a perfectly surreal soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic world. The Guardian named him new band of the week in August 2014.

Setlist.fm shows his tours of the US and Mexico in October and November 2025, Fuji Rock on July 25, 2025 and the Aladdin Theater in Portland on November 1, 2025. He has toured China, Europe and the Americas and collaborated with Devendra Banhart.

Albums

Songs

  • You Can Be a Robot, Too Let's Dance Raw · 2014

    The seventh track on Let's Dance Raw: banjo and steel guitar under a children's choir, and his most played song live.

Sources

  1. Shintaro Sakamoto, Wikipedia
  2. Shintaro Sakamoto interview, Time Out Tokyo (2014-08-25)
  3. Making honest, optimistic music in a cruel world, Tokion (2022-06-10)
  4. Shintaro Sakamoto, Bandcamp