Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green

TLDR: I found some new ambient music that's really doing it for me - go listen.

While doing some research on Haruomi Hosono, I stumbled upon Japanese artist and musician Hiroshi Yoshimura. His 1982 album Music for Nine Postcards is a minimal and ambient piece of work that was part an "environmental music series" by Satoshi Ashikawa called "Wave Notation" that sought to create carefully considered pieces of music that quietly filled a space. Ashikawa had this to say of the project. It is a lengthy quote but extremely relevant in these modern times:

'Sound design' doesn't just mean simply decorating with sounds. The creation of non-sound, a in other words silence, as in a design, if possible, would be wonderful. There's no question that our age - in which we are inundated with sound - is unprecedented in history. The Canadian sound environmentalist and researcher Murray Schafer warns of this state of affairs in the following: "The ear, unlike some other sense organs, is exposed and vulnerable. The eye can be closed at will; the ear is always open. The eye can be focused and pointed at will; the ear picks up all sound right back to the acoustic horizon in all directions. Its only protectionis an elaborate psychological system of filtering Out undesirable sounds in order to concentrate on what is desirable. The eye points outward; the ear draws inward. it would seem reasonable to suppose that as sound sources in the acoustic environment multiply - and they are certainty multiplying today - the ear will become blunted to them and will fail to exercise its individualistic right to demand that insouciant and distracting sounds should be stopped in order that it may concentrate totally on those which truly matter."

We should have a more conscious attitude toward the sounds - other than music - that we listen to. Presently, the levels of sound and music in the environment have clearly exceeded man's capacity to assimilate them, and the audio ecosystem is beginning to fall apart. Background music, which is supposed to create 'atmosphere', is far too excessive. In our present condition, we find that within certain areas and spaces, aspects of visual design are well attended to, but sound design is completely ignored. It is necessary to treat sound and music with the same level of daily need as we treat architecture, interior design, food, or the air we breathe. In any case, the "Wave Notation" series has begun. I hope it will be used and judged for what I had in mind as 'sound design', but of course the listener is free to use it in any way. However, I would hope this music does not become a partner in crime to the flood of sounds and music which inundate us at present.

Yoshimura's Nine Postcards is quiet, peaceful and fills the goal of being absolutely unobtrusive. His 1986 followup, and the subject of this post, is another ambient offering entitled Green, which takes the lessons from the Wave Notation series and builds upon them. The music is quiet and largely unobtrusive but occasionally swells to be heard. Underneath the keyboard driven soundscape are plenty of nature samples - rivers running and crickets chirping - that create an altogether peaceful listening experience.