Hiroshi Yoshimura
Today we’re listening to Hiroshi Yoshimura, a Japanese electronic musician from Yokohama. We’ve recommended his music five times in the past. Born in 1940, he started learning piano at age five, and in the ‘70s became hugely inspired by Brian Eno’s ambient music.1 Across the ‘80s and ‘90s, Yoshimura composed spare, naturalistic synth pieces that became known as kankyō ongaku (“environmental music”). His music gained a new international audience in the 2010s in large part due to the YouTube algorithm. Previously, Yoshimura’s records were scarce, but the label Temporal Drift has now reissued two of them. Flora, which was originally recorded in 1987, was just reissued last week. Surround, from 1986, was reissued in 2023. Both records showcase Yoshimura’s gentle and profound style of composition.
Flora - Hiroshi Yoshimura (58m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Surround - Hiroshi Yoshimura (40m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
We wish you a great start to your week.
Great reminder. And if you enjoy these, make sure to add "Green" and "Music for Nine Postcards" to your listening diet. Especially the former is essential Yoshimura imho
His music is absolutely brilliant. We’re still catching up to his ideas about music as an embodied form that can shape perception