Betelgeuse has no beginning, no end; it’s infinite, eternal. Takahiro Yorifuji describes it as a ‘journey to the stars’, with one, forty-two minute piece covering the great distance.
From the very first second, Betelgeuse feels like it’s been travelling for untold millennia – for aeons – incredibly stable and permanently frozen in time. In fact, the concept of time is disregarded, an alien and unnecessary construct in a vacuum of dark and solo bliss, where light emanates from the glistening music as well as from a dim memory of dead stars. Time has been replaced by nothing more than a glowing melody, but that’s enough. It’s essential, and all that’s needed. That sweet, sustained sound could pass for a single, smooth drone, but it’s more active and more alive than a passive drone.
When all is said and done, the guitar is just a tool, as the result is far removed from its conventional sound. The music feels like an ascension, reaching up higher and higher, and at a speed greater than that of an orbit’s pull. Nothing can come close to this: debris slides off its smooth, sparkling surface, which finds itself laminated by a cluster of higher, light-suffused notes. Betelgeuse mirrors the endless cosmos with its open music, somehow never losing its appeal or ever dragging. It’s both energetic and sleepy, a getaway and a gateway to other stars and areas filled with illimitable possibilities. It’s now boarding.
Godspeed. (James Catchpole)
a closer listen 