Hiroshi Yoshimura

Spencer Doran and Maxwell August Croy Start New Label, Reissue Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music For Nine Post Cards

 
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In 2010, Spencer Doran (best known now as a member of Visible Cloaks) uploaded a mix to SoundCloud entitled Fairlights, Mallets and Bamboo. Featuring tracks from YMO (and its members), Mariah, and the Mkwaju Ensemble, the mix can now be seen as one of few key moments that ushered in intense interest in 80s Japanese music in the West throughout the past decade. He along with Maxwell August Croy, one of the guys behind Root Strata, have just launched a new label called Empire of Signs. For its first release, the two are reissuing the inimitable 80s ambient album Music For Nine Post Cards by Hiroshi Yoshimura. You can listen to the first track from the album above.

This release marks the first time the album has been reissued outside of Japan, and is the first of numerous Yoshimura reissues to come. The LP comes with liner notes from both label owners as well as Yoko Yoshimura, Hiroshi Yoshimura's widow. It's being distributed by Light in the Attic and the initial pressing is limited to 1500 copies—1200 on black wax, 300 on clear wax. Light in the Attic has an option where you can pre-order this LP with the upcoming reissue of Hiroshi Yoshimura's Pier & Loft. You can pre-order the albums and read more information about Music for Nine Post Cards here.


Music for Nine Post Cards tracklist:

1. Water Copy
2. Clouds
3. Blink
4. Dance PM
5. Ice Copy
6. Soto Wa Ame - Rain Out Of Window
7. View From My Window
8. Urban Snow
9. Dream

17853 Records Reissue Hiroshi Yoshimura's Pier & Loft, Pre-Orders Available Now

 
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If you're like me, you consider Hiroshi Yoshimura to be one of the greatest ambient/new age artists of all time. If you're even more like me, you've been on the look out for his best releases on Discogs, eBay, and Yahoo! Auctions for quite some time, only to be consistently discouraged by the exorbitant prices they sell for. Luckily, Pier & Loft is getting reissued on vinyl for the very first time in late September via 17853 Records. Originally released in 1983 on cassette, Pier & Loft was created to soundtrack a fashion exhibition in Tokyo. The album was released on Fukusei Gijutsu Kohboh, a label run by Yoshio Ojima. Ojima produced it as well, and also released some of his own cult classic ambient/new age records during the 80s.

You can see the cover above, which was taken from an image in the original cassette's J-card. The tracklist and clips from the album can be found below. Pre-orders are currently available from distributors around the world. This includes Red Eye (UK), Phonica (UK), Pacific Beach Vinyl (USA), Rush Hour (Netherlands), and hhv (Germany). Japanese stores don't have the record currently listed but you can be sure to expect it from 17853 label boss Chee Shimizu's own Organic Music and other (killer) stores who have received the label's output in the past—HMV, Disk Union, Lighthouse Records, EAD, Los Apson?, Obscuro, Newtone, Rare Groove, and more.

 

Pier & Loft tracklist:

1. Horizon I've ever seen before
2. Signal F
3. Tokyo Bay Area
4. Wavy-patterned ice cream
5. Kamome dayori
6. The sea in my palm
7. In the sea breeze