REVIEW: YMC ESSENTIALS (YOSHITOSHI)

Futures never last, because there are always new ones. But some futures are too delicious to lose, like the lovely ambient dreamworld conjured during the '70s and '80s by people like Brian Eno, Harold Budd, and even Vangelis. What was it that made this world so appealing-- pleasure? peace? opulence? Whatever it was, it inspired a lot of us, including two Swedish guys who hooked up in 1995, Yan (a.k.a. Jan Lutgebaucks) and Cpook-E (a.k.a. Erik Svahn, whose nickname is pronounced "spooky"-- and not to be confused with DJ Spooky, a.k.a Paul Miller). The duo appeared on the scene in 1998 with The YMC EP (Yoshitoshi) and followed up with "candy trance" (my word!) must-haves like The Moody Traxx EP (Force Inc US), The Nu Mood EP (Plastic City), The Satellite Traxx EP (Plackdown Sounds), and Nu Directions (Nepenta).

Now YMC has released YMC Essentials (Yoshitoshi), which looks like a "greatest hits" with new stuff. If you care about the quality of your own future-- at least, the rest of your summer-- you'll want to check it out. The CD is like a midnight drive along a tropical shore road in a glamorous convertible, toward a secret pavilion-- though the banal titles of the album's twelve tracks ("Mist," "Morning Lake," "Phuture Vibes," etc.) barely hint at the transcendent, translucent musical tissue YMC weaves. Primarily beat-driven, these tracks don't bring you to that luxuriously lazy place where Vangelis and Budd often wound up. Instead, they combine today's more forward-pulsing, not-so-eternal energy with several of the higher-consciousness effects that were so prized by "new age" composers and DJs: gauzy, weatherish echos suggesting dimensions beyond the usual three; open hearted, semi-robotic vocals that bypass the conscious mind and go straight into the bloodstream; plus, of course, your standard crystalline glints. The result? YMC gives us a future to live with, for now....