Yume Bitsu
K Records
Portland-based space-drone quartet Yume
Bitsu play ambient rock music that could
be the soundtrack to a psychedelic art film --
or a psychotropically stimulated excursion into
the deep space of consciousness. The name
translates from Japanese to "dream beats," and
the group's hypnotic, sometimes almost
painfully gorgeous compositions feel like the
stuff of dreams; they make you feel you've
entered a kind of simulacrum of the world in
which dimensionality and gravity are inverted
and perspective is confused, so objects that
should be far away seem right next to you and
you're not sure if you're closer to the sky or
the ground. It's both beautiful and disorienting.
Yume Bitsu's spacious, airy epics fall
around you in sheets, almost like a heavy rain
of musical colors: cool, damp, haunting synth
curtains fold around eerie, reverb-drenched
guitar lines while dense, psychedelic percussive
hailstones fall all about. The sound suggests
the ambient psychedelia of '70s Ash Ra Tempel or
Tangerine Dream as
well as the synth-happy drone of My Bloody Valentine.
Yume Bitsu's compositions are primarily
instrumental, though ethereal, melodious vocals
enter the mix occasionally. There's a
remarkable drama and dynamism running
through these epic compositions; it's not just
all spacey bliss, but there's a kind of narrative
in place, full of climactic peaks and muted,
restrained valleys, that works on the psyche
the way a dream does, evoking unidentifiable
feelings of nostalgia and d?ja vú.
Yume Bitsu has released three albums.
Their self-titled debut full-length and its
follow-up, Giant Surface Music Falling to
Earth Like Jewels from the Sky, appeared
on Ba Da Bing Records. Their newest,
2000's Auspicious Winds, is available on
K Records. The album's title is a
reference to the Japanese high tea ceremony,
and suggests the intuitive spirituality that runs
throughout their compositions. Auspicious
Winds features the exotic,
tropical-sounding "Doctor Trips."
Jesse Ashlock
last updated:
02/07/02
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