FLORA by HIROSHI YOSHIMURA

Tape edition of Flora, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s underrated work originally recorded and completed in 1987 and first released on CD in 2006, three years after his passing in 2003.

Flora is chronologically and stylistically a follow-up to Hiroshi Yoshimura’s acclaimed 1986 works Green and Surround, wherein Yoshimura continues to play with the ambience of sound and the sound of ambience, underscoring his mastery in the field of environmental music. Listening to Flora is like taking a stroll in a park, absorbing the colors and textures of the natural environment—flowers, insects, the swaying of the leaves—as Yoshimura often did at his beloved Edo-era park near his home in Tokyo. As Junichi Konuma describes in his liner notes, Yoshimura’s music “only begins to emerge as it exists at the intersection of passive and active.” Yoshimura's approach to sound and melody invites the listener to hear the intricacies of the music with intent, while simultaneously allowing the aural textures to exist as part of the background of our everyday life.

This reissue marks the first time the album will be available on vinyl (2LP, 45 rpm) and cassette, and includes liner notes written by music scholar Junichi Konuma and remastered audio by Grammy-nominated engineer John Baldwin. Reissue design and layout was handled by Tiffanie Tran.

All composed and performed by Hiroshi Yoshimura
Photos by Hiroshi Yoshimura & Takeo Kubota
Recorded by Hiroshi Yoshimura at Hiroo 806 Studio, 1987
Produced for release by Yasushi Takamatsu & Tamiko Hohda
Original art direction by gift_lab (Toshikazu Goto & Fumiko Ikeda)
Original cover design by Takuu tuore Inc. (Masahito Suda)

Reissue produced by Yosuke Kitazawa & Patrick McCarthy
Remastered by John Baldwin
Reissue layout and design by Tiffanie Tran
Liner notes by Junichi Konuma

Special thanks to Yoko Yoshimura, Tsutomu Mizusawa, Saki Nagato