Flora – Hiroshi Yoshimura (1987) – Album Review

Flora is a quieter kind of record. It doesn’t try to move you with grandeur or urgency. Each track settles into place slowly and stays there. Yoshimura works with careful simplicity. The synth tones feel rounded and unhurried, spaced out with a sense of calm precision. There’s no big shift, no climax. Just subtle movement, textures passing over each other like slow waves. This isn’t background music—it only works when you’re paying attention. Try listening with headphones in the early morning. Or while looking out a window after the rain. It changes the temperature of the room.

The album was recorded in 1987 but wasn’t widely available until recent reissues. That delay kept it from being overplayed. When you listen now, it still sounds preserved. There’s no clutter. No distraction. Just the patient unfolding of tone and space. It belongs to the same world as Green or Music for Nine Postcards, but it doesn’t repeat them. If you’ve never heard Hiroshi Yoshimura, this album works as a quiet introduction. If you already know his work, this one offers new spaces to sit inside.