Hiroshi Yoshimura - Music From Nine Postcards LP

Label: Empire Of Signs

Our Review:

We've experienced a flutter of essential early 80's Japanese reissues the past couple years, and now Spencer Doran's imprint Empire of Signs may have just dropped the most obscure and best so far. Recorded in 1982 Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music For Nine Post Cards was created to be "environmental music" also known as "kankyo ongaku" in Japan, and the same phrase used to describe Brian Eno's Ambient 1-4 series, which was released four years prior.

It would be convenient to listen to a small sample of this record and categorize it as background muzak. The album's concept is very similar to Eno's Music For Aiports, but compositions are stripped down and much shorter than anything that appears in the Ambient series.

A keyboard and a Fender Rhodes are the only instruments featured on this record. Yoshimura seamlessly overlays a tactile presence of the musician's hand onto dreamy overtones creating an ethereal ambience to the album. Yoshimura's slow, gentle, and soulful keys throughout leads the listener into intimate and poetic realms of interpretation. For fans of K. Leimer, Midori Takada, Woo, Nuno Canavarro, Badalamenti's Twin Peaks and Brian Eno's ambient series.