1. of freedom and flight (11:08)
The crisp guitar tones, sent through circuitry double back upon themselves, the vibrations falling and lagging, but keeping in some complex time. Deep bass tones reverberating underneath, drones rising and waiting for their moment to mature. Strums fall into place, and the drums hit. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now coasting through the song. Yume Bitsu's 1998 album, giant surface music falling to earth like jewels from the sky is the Portland, OR's initial offering to a thirsty universe. Details & distortion deepen dilapidated hearts and homes, hungry for hi-fi hotel rooms which sleep on corners through corridors and across accumulated mountains. Yume Bitsu consider themselves the renowned dryystonian sentinel servants. In improvisation (and probably psychedelic drugs, I'd imagine) they discovered "Vessyl, a channel of collective energy that is greater than the whole of the creative egos of the performers.... Through the trance-like state of both listening to and playing forth from the Vessyl, Visions of Beautiful New Dimensions of Existence came to the young men."

we found you,
and you found me.
and only wings
can set you free
and when we fly
up above
will we find
both our heads?

2. the end of pain is near (06:37)
I...
I'll be with you...
nothing in this place
could take away the pain between your thighs
nothing that I say or do
could take away how I feel for you
I... I'll be with you...

Swirling destruction of synth blurbles, and hurdles to jump. It's not so much that the lyrics to this album are good, they are transmitters of vibrational frequencies of music mind you--it's the poignancy of where the words come in. How long one must wait for the words to come in. I hold my breath, bob my head and wait, with each sudden emission of vocal distrubances a revelaton not in its utterance, but in its placement and instrumental qualities amid the terrential rain storm created by the catalogue of guitars and duration of synthesizing entities. For those who in album reviews like comparisons to other bands, I give only in an off-hand way, Sigur Ros.

3. travels over seascapes (11:43)
What is it in this world that keeps us going? I see the shapes of buildings, the rolling over of waves, and the intonations of stereo doom, with which I cuddle and soothe and hold my self back from playing gootchy-goo. Is there something we are working towards, and if not--what's the point in participating at all? Human variety exists, but after awhile--it's all human. Where's the fun in that? And then, interspecies communication. Day of the Dolphin type stuff. Another level of our thought networking together as we wander--but we look to space as well, we look to space and we do not yet know the sea. Sometimes we take comfort in our names, in our occupation--the way we fit in the clockworks. Yume Bitsu is Jason Anderson on drums, Alex Bundy on electronics, Adam Forkner on vocals, guitars, and keyboards, & Franz Prichard on guitars.

It is at about four minutes and forty-five seconds into this song that the guitars and drums and everything begin to coaelesce into this two-note multi-layered progression that fills my soul with positivity. It's as if I'd been floating over the sea up until the point the drum was hit and then swoosh! into the ocean, like in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. To the island of Namboomboo. It's all rising for a purpose. Sets & rises, rises & sets. Warbly synth fights the guitars back, while a piano adds smooth & creamy peanut butter to the mix. And then I stand, knowing I have enough time to grab some more coffee before approaching the universe of the next song.

4. flight of the navigator (04:06)
You are the navigator, in and over these seas of life. You have control at the helm, and the moment you forget that your ship can sink. I could throw my fishing pole bullshit into the sea a thousand times and not come up with a single bite just due to not caring. But the longer you hold silence in, and the longer you hold your breath waiting for the next big change, or finally, mid-sentence

YOU DIE.
You die.
You die.
You die.
You die.
You die.
You die.
You die.

And you understand, not even the sea or the distortion can save you any more--you'll be zapped back into the waiting room or whatever is waiting for you on the other side. And I've seen glimpses of the future, which I call the future only because I don't know any other words or concepts that could explain the things I've seen. People can call me loon right to my face, but I know what I've seen out there, and I've got to tread my path before the moment happens. I am the navigator in flight this very moment, and my song is sung in distortion.

5. where fog blurs and covers, emptiness prevails (16:16)
And I can feel it all slipping away. My life has always been one where fog blurs and covers, and that explains the emptiness. The fear of looking emotions in the eye for what they are can cause a world of pain. But to take the moment to really feel something can break the haze a million times over. All these phrases and ideas in my stories, like Yume Bitsu themselves claim of their own artistic production, are coming from something other. And to look through the holes and see those island tangents of thought, metaphorically floating in the mist, is to cut through the bullshit and for some of us--begin to find a kind of happiness. Where fog blurs and covers, emptiness may prevail--but where the shit is shined and the atom bombs buried--clarity is found. So much clarity that it doesn't matter how much distortion you wrap around your words, and your sounds, because if you live your life in blur the distortion can only bury you deeper. "To see with eyes unclouded" is repeated in Princess Mononoke, but as advice--one could even look into the deepest pit of fog & despair and see clearly to the bottom of the fucking well. This is the difference of distortion in say Metallica and Godspeed you black emperor! in a way, to offer a superficial music-oriented example.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and I've used this album as my example: Consider music not only a distraction, but as an opportunity for self-discovery, and investigation into the unknown. Music isn't just a bunch of people toking bong hits and twiddling on their instruments in G minor, heading for chord progressions handed down by the masters. It's a means by which to unlock the human mind if only for a minute, or forty-nine minutes and and forty-five seconds as is the case of giant surface music falling to earth like jewels from the sky. When the record's over, it's just you and the silence of the earth.

Some biographical information came from http://www.yumebitsu.com

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