[Hiroshi Yoshimura field recording in Yugawa, Japan, circa early 1990s, photo courtesy of Nuvola Yoko Yoshimura]
Temporal Drift has announced the first-ever official reissue of Surround, the ambient classic from Japanese music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura. The release also marks the first time the title will be released digitally.
Surround will be released digitally on October 6th, followed by the LP, CD, and cassette editions due out December 1st. The first track, “Something blue,” is available now.
Produced in full cooperation with Yoshimura’s estate, the original six-track album has been newly remastered by Grammy-nominated engineer John Baldwin. The LP and CD editions are accompanied by a 12-page booklet featuring Yoshimura’s original liner notes (in Japanese and English), as well as new notes penned by Hiroyoshi Shiokawa, an environmental music scholar and one of the album’s original Producers.
Pressed at Gotta Groove Records, the LP edition is being offered on standard black wax, as well as in a variety of limited-edition color variants (including translucent blue wax), available exclusively on Temporal Drift’s Bandcamp page, as well as through select retailers (Turntable Lab and HHV) and archival label Light in the Attic, who is also handling the worldwide distribution for the release.
More About Hiroshi Yoshimura:
Barely known outside of his home country during his lifetime, the late Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura has seen his global stature rise steadily in the past few years. The 2017 reissue of Yoshimura’s lauded debut, Music For Nine Post Cards, his inclusion on the GRAMMY®-nominated 2019 compilation Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990, the 2020 reissue of GREEN, and a slow-building cult internet following has helped ignite a renaissance for his acclaimed body of work, much of which had never been previously released outside of Japan.
Known for his sound design and environmental music, Yoshimura was a member of the legendary sound-art ensemble Taj Mahal Travellers in the 1970s, and in his later years, he worked on a number of commissions (including works for museums, galleries, public spaces, TV shows, video art, fashion shows, and even a cosmetics company). He passed away in 2003, leaving behind a lasting legacy that includes some of the most influential ambient and environmental music committed to tape. Earlier this year, The Museum of Modern Art in Kamakura, Japan held a career-spanning exhibition of his works, titled Hiroshi Yoshimura: Ambience of Sound, Sound of Ambience, which included rare archival materials chronicling not only his work in music, but also his equally captivating work in visual art, poetry, video, and sound sculptures. For more of Yoshimura, visit YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
