Music Corner Week 35: Youmentbay

Youmentbay is a twin vocal pop rock unit formed back in 2017. Originally meeting in college, guitarist Yamaya and keyboardist Sakurai had the simple premise of wanting to create music that gives you a sense of freedom to roll with everyday life with that high. Youmentbay keeps true to that promise with light and euphoric compositions with beautifully crafted lyrical compositions.

Blurring the lines of city pop and R&B style, Youmentbay keeps listeners on their toes with several of their earlier work with alternative style guitar heavy tracks like “Cider” and “Feast”, but on a whim could flirt with psychedelic compositions like with “30th”. While this is the first inter-gender twin vocal unit that we have covered on Music Corner, they have set the bar for units of this caliber. Sakurai’s alluring high vocal range is nothing to sneeze at as not only can she invoke that city pop style range that is prevalent in their track “Night Radio”, she also plays with a slight R&B influence with their track “息をとめて” (“Imi o Tomete”). This is somewhat offset by Yamaya’s amazing vocals which are just smooth and encompass everything about their uplifting style of yearning to be free. While this random assortment might be overbearing to the senses to some, Youmentbay mixes it all together into a great melting pot that listeners just have to experience themselves.

Currently Youmentbay has released two EPs, Night Radio and Holiday in 2018, along with self-titled album Youmentbay in 2019 which you can purchase. With several digitally released singles throughout 2019, Youmentbay is looking to guide listeners to that freedom that they promise. 

Check out their official website and their official Twitter along with the music video for “Imi o Tomete” below!