The Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura says his genre is best described as the “middle ground between sound and music”.
Yoshimura died in 2003 aged 63 but has since become treasured for his experimentation with kankyō ongaku (environment music), born when Japan’s economy was booming in the late 80s and inspired by works like Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.
More recently, Yoshimura’s six albums have found a new home in internet forums and YouTube.
There, the latest of his works to be reissued and remastered by the LA-based label Temporal Drift is Flora.
Previously only available as a limited-run CD in 2006 or on shoddy YouTube rips, Yoshimura’s 1987 work is as sublime as it is minimal.
As the world enters a new season, Flora is the musical equivalent of watching a flower bloom slowly and release its heady scent.
It’s an album best enjoyed meditatively and in its entirety.
Photo credits: @forcefieldpr/Instagram
