McCarthy and his Temporal Drift partner, Yosuke Kitazawa, have been part of four of the five Yoshimura reissues that have been released by multiple record labels since 2017. The pair met at the indie imprint Light in the Attic, where they built a relationship with the Yoshimura estate while preparing to resurface his debut, “Music for Nine Postcards.” McCarthy and Kitazawa started Temporal Drift in 2021, partly to keep releasing Yoshimura’s albums. “We loved the music so much, and we wanted to continue that relationship because it did take years to develop that trust,” McCarthy said.
During the ’80s, Yoshimura was influenced by Eno’s ambient music, R. Murray Schafer’s concept of soundscapes and the sound installations of Max Neuhaus. In his lifetime, he did not enjoy widespread recognition. “This does not belong to the mainstream of the art world, this does not belong to the mainstream of contemporary music,” said Katsushi Nakagawa, an associate professor of sound art and sound studies at Yokohama National University, Institute of Urban Innovation. “It belongs to the margins.”
But as contemporary listeners seek relaxing or meditative sounds, YouTube’s algorithm has turned unofficial uploads of Yoshimura albums like “Wet Land” and “Green” into favorites with millions of plays. His track “Blink” was featured on the Grammy-nominated 2019 compilation “Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990,” put together by the musician Spencer Doran.
In 2023, the Museum of Modern Art’s Kamakura Annex hosted a Yoshimura retrospective, which Temporal Drift is planning to bring to Los Angeles. That same year, the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles hosted an event celebrating kankyō ongaku. Hundreds of attendees floated around the venue, experiencing performances in its theater, plaza and Japanese garden.
“At J.A.C.C.C., a concept that we generally try to explore with all our presentations is to blur the lines between the performer and the audience,” said Rani de Leon, its executive creative director. “This music naturally fit into that sort of approach.”
Many of ambient music’s landmark recordings have a connection to disaster or death, reflecting on what has been lost: Eno was inspired to make “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” while hospitalized after an automobile accident, and William Basinski’s “The Disintegration Loops” became a Sept. 11 memorial. But Yoshimura’s work provides an appreciation of what we still have.
“It’s just about the moment, where you’re at, wherever you are,” the guitarist Wong said. “It reminds me of everything that’s free, like the air and the sun and the wind.”
