Some of the most loved ambient records of the last decade were barely available for most of their lives. For years Hiroshi Yoshimura's albums were hard to find outside Japan, until reissues brought them to a new audience. Quiet Forest is one of the last to come back, and it matters more than most: it was the final album-length work Yoshimura released before his passing in 2003. Temporal Drift is reissuing it for its 30th anniversary, on vinyl and cassette for the first time ever. The digital album and the CD and cassette arrive on November 13. The vinyl ships on or around December 4.
The story behind Quiet Forest
The album started with a trip. Yoshimura visited the Hoh Rain Forest inside Olympic National Park, across the water from Seattle, and his own note on the record describes long green fronds hanging from the branches and a silence so complete that no birds or insects could be heard. "But when you try to listen, no sound can be heard," he wrote. The music is his attempt to put that stillness on tape.
The details on the label's page explain why it took a while. The basic tracks were recorded in the fall of 1993, but the album did not come out until 1996, on CD only. In between, Yoshimura kept revising the song titles and dropped an idea to lay nature field recordings over the music. He trusted the synths to carry the forest on their own. The label calls it a spiritual follow-up to Green, his best-known album from a decade earlier, and one of the songs is named after the Hoh River itself.
Quiet Forest tracklist
- Quiet Forest
- Whispering
- After Rain
- Hoh River
- Sunrise
- Deep Echoes (6:10)
- Melting Wind
- Dancing Creek (7:29)
- Rain Forest
- Lullaby of Leaves
Two tracks are streaming now, Deep Echoes and Dancing Creek. Both run past six minutes. Play them below.
Hiroshi Yoshimura Quiet Forest vinyl, CD and cassette
Every physical edition was produced with Yoshimura's estate and remastered from the original sources by John Baldwin. Each one carries English translations of the original 1996 liner notes, with design by D. Norsen.
- Black vinyl LP: the first time Quiet Forest has been on vinyl. Pressed at Optimal, with reproductions of Yoshimura's handwritten recording notes and a 5 x 7 inch postcard print. Ships on or around December 4.
- Color vinyl LP: a Bandcamp exclusive green pressing, limited to one per customer. It has already sold out.
- CD Digipak: the album's original format, with the same handwritten notes. Ships on or around November 13.
- Cassette: also a first for this album. Ships on or around November 13.
- Digital: download in 24-bit/44.1kHz, out November 13.
Where it fits in the catalog
Temporal Drift has been working through Yoshimura's catalog since 2023. It has already reissued Surround, the 1986 album he made on commission for the home builder Misawa Homes as sound for its new houses, and Flora, recorded in 1987 but not released until 2006. Quiet Forest extends that run into his last decade. Its subject also sits close to another forest record we love, Wolfgang Voigt's GAS Pop, though Yoshimura's version is all light and air where Voigt's is fog.
If you are new to the style the Japanese call kankyō ongaku, or environmental music, our ambient starter guide begins with his debut, Music for Nine Post Cards, and our Light in the Attic guide covers the Green reissue. The rest of the label's catalog is on the Temporal Drift Bandcamp page.
Our call: pre-order the black vinyl. This album only ever existed as a CD, so the LP is the real news, and the handwritten recording notes make it more than a pressing. The color edition is gone, and the black one is a standard pressing that will be easier to get. Start with Deep Echoes. If the calm of it grabs you, the vinyl is worth the wait until December. If you only want to try it, the cassette or download costs less and arrives now.
