Hiroshi Yoshimura’s GREEN was recorded during the winter of 1985–86 in his home studio. The music uses Yamaha FM synthesizers, machines often associated with the bright and precise digital sound of the 1980s, but Yoshimura uses them to create something restrained, spacious and remarkably soft. He explained that “green” referred not simply to a colour but to the comfortable scenery of a natural cycle.
Yoshimura is interesting because ambient music for him was often connected to actual environments. He made music for museums, galleries, public spaces, television, fashion and other commissioned situations.
That makes ambient less like a genre and more like environmental design.
The composer is not only asking what sounds should occur.
He is asking what sound should do to a place.
I also like the contradiction inside GREEN: digital FM synthesis producing something that feels organic.
There is no attempt to disguise the synthesizer as birds, wind or water. Instead Yoshimura creates an electronic environment gentle enough that the listener begins making those associations independently.
Perhaps natural sound does not require imitation.
Sometimes it requires leaving enough room for the imagination to finish the landscape.
#HiroshiYoshimura #JapaneseAmbient #FMSynthesis #EnvironmentalMusic
