Bleep

Hiroshi Yoshimura - Music For Nine Postcards

Top shelf, life-affirming electronic minimalism from the sadly deceased Hiroshi Yoshimura. With many of his records long out of print and going for stupid money, the recent interest in his work has spurred a number of labels to make them available once more. Can’t say we’re not glad! From YouTube algorithm classic ‘Dance PM’ through to the deep cutting ‘Urban Snow’, these have got you covered for ideal, Sundays spent under the covers winter soundtracks this year. Check out Chee Shimizu’s recent reissue of Yoshimura’s Pier & Loft if you’re left craving more.

Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green

Light In The Attic begin their Water Copy series, a run focussing on the works of late Japanese ambient composer Hiroshi Yoshimura, with a new edition of Yoshimura’s 1986 LP Green. Previously near-impossible to get hold of, Green is a glorious collection that will put a smile on the face of even the most hard-bitten listener. There is plenty of new age music to Yoshimura’s sound, while the pulse and momentum of tracks like ‘Creek’ and ‘Feel’ may owe a debt to NYC minimalism. This is a much livelier collection than the work of Western ambient artists like Brian Eno, and given the high esteem in which Yoshimura is held it’s not hard to see how his influence would have spread out from Green.

Inoyama Land - Commissions: 1977-2000

Following the comprehensive release Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990 on Light In The Attic, Empire Of Signs offer a wider catalogue of blissful atmospherics from comp highlight Inoyama Land aka Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita. Much like its spiritual predecessor, Commissions: 1977-2000 takes a retrospective gaze back at rare and lesser known works by geniuses of ambient music, many of which being made available outside of Japan for the first time. Once purely situated within the context of Tokyo’s environmental music business boom, Inoue and Yamashita’s patient sensibilities sound utterly modern to the ear, constituting so much more than a grey area between art and commerce.