We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best experience. Most of these are essential and already present.
We do require your explicit consent to save your cart and browsing history between visits. Read about cookies we use here.
Your cart and preferences will not be saved if you leave the site.
play

Yoichi Kamimura

ryūhyō (LP)

Label: Forms of Minutiae

Format: LP

Genre: Sound Art

Preorder: Releases July 25th, 2025

€19.80
VAT exempt
+
-
To mark the UN’s International Year of Glaciers' Preservation, sound artist Yoichi Kamimura presents “ryūhyō,” a rich sonic portrait of Japan’s drifting sea ice. Blending underwater and aerial recordings, the album reveals the melting voices and fragile ecology of Ryūhyō’s vanishing world.

200 copies limited edition "In a powerful intersection of art and environmental science, sound artist Yoichi Kamimura’s new album, “ryūhyō,” offers a poignant auditory document of Japan’s dwindling sea ice. Released as part of the “Our Ice Series” by label forms of minutiae, the album is a contribution to UNESCO and WMO’s “Art for Glaciers Preservation,” coinciding with the UN’s declaration of 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.

Recorded over four years in Hokkaido, “ryūhyō” translates to “drifting ice.” The album immerses listeners in the unique soundscape of the Sea of Okhotsk, the southernmost region in the northern hemisphere to witness this phenomenon. Kamimura’s microphones capture a world both alien and intimate. Guttural groans, crackles, and squeals of the shifting ice floes mingle with the haunting calls of the rare Blakiston’s fish owl and the otherworldly sinusoidal songs of courting ribbon seals.

The record is a sonic elegy for a changing ecosystem. Locals recall a time when the ice was thick enough to walk on, emitting a whistling sound known as Ryūhyō-Nari. Today, that sound is gone. Kamimura’s blend of aerial and hydrophone recordings presents the new, fragile voice of the ice—a visceral, melting symphony that urges us to listen closely before it fades to silence." - Klof Mag

Details
Cat. number: form016
Year: 2025
Notes:

duration: 37:11 — LP — limited edition of 200

sounds by and around drifting ice (ryūhyō) 

recorded, composed, and photographed by yoichi kamimura 

shiretoko, hokkaido (japan) 2019 – 2023

"ryūhyō" was awarded the sound of the year awards 2022 (disappearing sound category), and received a special mention in the phonurgia nova 2023 awards (field recording category).


in memory of keiichi kikuchi and takeshi yamazaki

special acknowledgments to shiretoko club, yuko sunayama, sachiko shiokawa, yoshiko nakayama, hideki akagi, kumiko kowada, gen mikami, noriyuki hayashi, alp museum, costep (hokkaido university), and the people of shiretoko