Hiroshi Yoshimura (1940-2003) was a Japanese ambient composer and a foundational figure in kankyō ongaku, the 1980s environmental music movement. Music for Nine Post Cards (1982) and Green (1986) are the essentials, made widely available again through Light in the Attic's reissue program. Browse Hiroshi Yoshimura vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Hiroshi Yoshimura was born in Yokohama, Japan on July 24, 1940. He worked extensively across visual art, sound design, environmental music, and ambient music composition, with commissioned work for Japanese commercial spaces, museums, and home goods companies in the 1970s and 1980s. His Music for Nine Post Cards (1982) was originally distributed alongside the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art's collection. He is widely cited as a foundational figure in the kankyō ongaku (environmental music) movement alongside Inoyama Land, Yasuaki Shimizu, Yoshio Ojima, and others. He died on October 12, 2003 at age 63 after a battle with cancer. Light in the Attic Records launched a comprehensive reissue program of his work from 2017 onward, which has expanded his international reputation.
Hiroshi Yoshimura's sound combines ambient, kankyō ongaku (environmental music), minimalism, electronic, and Japanese new age with extensive use of vintage analog synthesizers, environmental field recordings, and contemplative compositional approaches drawing on Brian Eno's foundational ambient music alongside distinctly Japanese aesthetic traditions.
Light in the Attic reissues of the Hiroshi Yoshimura catalog have been issued in multiple color variant editions and limited deluxe pressings, with collector demand. Original Sound Process and Misawa Home pressings are extremely rare collector items.
Listeners new to Hiroshi Yoshimura typically start with Music for Nine Post Cards (1982) or Green (1986).
