Evaluating Encompass to the work of Yoshimura’s contemporaries helps make clear the distinctiveness of the Japanese composer’s imaginative and prescient. Within the Eighties, Steve Roach and Michael Stearns constructed interplanetary fantasies, Budd & Eno’s The Pearl turned new-age reverberations into legendary goals, and Ambient 4: On Land was darkish and moody, stuffed with atmospheric intrigue. Yoshimura’s work is much extra all the way down to earth, unconcerned with imagining new locales. In “Inexperienced bathe,” a woodwind-like melody trickles down like rain, touchdown in a pool of rippling synths. When a higher-pitched tone arrives, it does so with the heat of a solar breaking the horizon. Conjuring whole landscapes out of some meager layers of sound, Yoshimura appears to encourage listeners to focus their senses and see how a lot music already surrounds us.
For many years, Yoshimura wrote down his ideas about music in notebooks. Maybe most insightful was when he mused, “My music is just not mine, however the sounds which aren’t mine are additionally my music.” As John Cage had with 4’33”, Yoshimura discovered that something may very well be compositional materials, that he was a mere participant within the universe’s collective symphony. That is particularly obvious on his albums incorporating area recordings, like 1986’s GREEN or 1993’s Moist Land, however related concepts additionally animate Encompass. On “Water planet,” glistening synths intermittently seem, one word at a time—generally providing a semblance of melody, however largely simply glowing amid diaphanous drones. The tune resembles an vital precursor to environmental music: suikinkutsu, a Japanese backyard decoration the place water droplets echo inside jars.
Music this tender looks like a beneficiant embrace. That’s the prevailing impression of Encompass’s 11-minute centerpiece, “Time forest.” Its synths oscillate with out pause, tremolo pulses in fixed movement. Midway by means of, deep synthesizer chimes provide a welcome sense of stability amid the mushy tumult. “Serenity is likely to be the supreme music I’m aiming at,” Yoshimura as soon as stated. He wasn’t endorsing escapism; he detested rock’n’roll for pursuing simply that. His music as an alternative prized hyper-awareness of 1’s environment. Even his friends making kankyō ongaku couldn’t fairly attain this cautious steadiness. At instances, their works may very well be too dramatic, or go away one drifting aimlessly. With Encompass, every new growth is significant, and its quietude is a website for energetic engagement.
