Haruomi Hosono – Yours Sincerely

Haruomi Hosono's Yours Sincerely arrives as the Japanese musician's 23rd studio album, due on September 11, 2026 via Ghostly International, and his first collection of new material in more than seven years. That alone gives it real weight: Hosono is not simply revisiting a storied career, but extending it. As a co-founder of Yellow Magic Orchestra and a key figure in Japanese pop and electronic music, he has spent more than five decades moving between folk, ambient, exotica, avant-pop and synth-driven experimentation, and this record folds that history into something quietly forward-looking.

The album is built around ideas of compassion and human connection, with Hosono drawing on the Japanese concept of omoiyari as a starting point. The music reportedly moves between warm songcraft and gentle electronic passages, balancing acoustic instruments, analogue synths and restrained arrangements rather than pushing for obvious grandeur. Sources describe a set that shifts from tender psych-folk to playful avant-pop, with Hosono reflecting on memory, instinct and what he called two musical worlds: the music of his former self and the unknown music still to come.

Specific songs help sketch that range. “Note of Mothership” is described as a group-voiced expression of childlike wonder, while “Sincerely” gives the album its emotional centre, using a familiar letter-signoff to express something heartfelt that Hosono felt English words only partly captured. Several tracks also feature female vocalists, reinforcing the album's themes of maternal care, mercy and shared feeling. For longtime listeners, Yours Sincerely sounds less like a victory lap than another thoughtful turn in one of modern music's most wide-ranging catalogues.