Hiroshi Yoshimura

Hiroshi Yoshimura made music to sit inside a room rather than fill it. A pioneer of Japan's kankyō ongaku, or environmental music, he built soft, slowly turning pieces from a few synthesiser and electric piano notes, inspired by Erik Satie and Brian Eno, and designed sound for museums and public spaces.

Music for Nine Post Cards, his 1982 debut, was recorded at home, inspired by the changing views from his window, and written to be played in the galleries of Tokyo's Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, overlooking its garden courtyard. Green and Wet Land followed in the same gentle spirit, and years after his death in 2003, reissues and YouTube recommendations found him a whole new audience.