Hello! I'm Benbrick. Scroll down to watch my
piano performance of the song
Sakura Nagashi.
piano performance of the song
Sakura Nagashi.
In July 2011 at a friends birthday party I was introduced to a Japanese singer called Utada Hikaru. We had a chance to talk about music and discuss artists we were listening to (like Elbow, PJ Harvey and Yoko Kanno). I didn't know at the time that she was a very successful singer in Japan and had sold 52 million records.
In August 2011 we were at a piano (we had decided we would try to write some music together) and I started playing some chords that would become a song called Sakura Nagashi. I don't know how but the song came out almost in one piece and we made very few changes to the chords and structure after this. The production took a little longer to realise - we spent a whole year tweaking the song between both of our studios while Hikaru came up with melodies and Japanese lyrics.
At some point over that year she told me about her involvement with the movie franchise Evangelion. She had provided the end themes for the first two instalments and thought that our song could be great for the next one - Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo.
We finished the song and it was released on iTunes as a single on the same day as the film opened. The song quickly went to #1 on iTunes and the movie had the biggest opening weekend of any movie released in Japan that year.
The music video was shot by Cannes International Film Festival Grand Prix winner Naomi Kawase who said its message was about 'the need to value the things that are presently and immediately around us and can be touched.'
It's 2016 and I'm incredibly excited because the song has just been announced as the final song from Utada's forthcoming record Fantôme. It's her sixth Japanese album and comes out in just under 2 weeks time.
hey man! you are a superstar. down to earth, super cool and helpful. great we met through steemit!
Very impressive and inspirational! Thanks for sharing!
You blow me away, @thisisbenbrick. Unreal! :)
thanks @fairytalelife !
That is really beautiful. Thanks for sharing!
thank you!
Dude, i really felt it. Thanks
thank you :)
I'm impressed by your talent!
beautiful! Being able to play the piano is wonderful...
Awesome! I love Evangelion! Keep up the great work and thank you for sharing! :)
Oh cool! Thanks for watching :)
Ben that is wicked!!! So powerfull! I am impressed mate, really!
Good stuff! Nice to have musicians here on Steemit, welcome!
Followed and upvoted.
Very compelling, it is like contemplating the memories then writing it in a song. Thank you for sharing :)
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Very relaxing!!
Very nice. Thank you!
Beautiful. We are lucky to have you. J.
I could listen to that all day. Great work man!!
Great work! And love the simplicity of the video as well.
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Great title man I'm following you. I really enjoyed your piece; it's staccato style is very clean and pleasing (I tend to play more open with a good bit of sustain so its refreshing to hear). It's wild how much of a journey one single piece of art can take you on. Enjoy the ride brother.