HIROSHI YOSHIMURA Vinyl & CDs

Review: In the widespread revival of Japanese ambient music, Hiroshi Yoshimura's music has been cast as some of the most cherished and reissued. Albums such as Music For Nine Post Cards and Green have enjoyed high-end editions in recent times, and now comes the turn of 1986 masterpiece Surround. It's been fervently pined for by the new wave of Far East ambient aficionados, and for good reason. This is Yoshimura at his best, delicately placing elegant musical figures atop oceanic pools of synth and leaving ample room for the mind to cast adrift. That might sound like a very generic way of describing an ambient release, but Surround's qualities transcend the formulaic trappings of the genre to become something truly magical.

Review: Amongst the many Hiroshi Yoshimura albums to enjoy a reissue in recent years, it's astonishing it's taken until now for someone to do right by Surround. Yoshimura's legacy (and second hand value) has shot up since the resurgent appreciation of ambient music from Japan and some his most treasured albums have ridden waves of online algorithms to become wildly popular and highly sought after. The prices on original copies of this 1986 album tell you all you need to know, but thankfully Temporal Drift are here to present a high-end reissue of this masterful piece of ambient escapism, crafted by a true master of the genre. This is the blue vinyl pressing, all the better to dive into head first.