ACID MOTHERS SWR

The SWR incarnation of Acid Mothers Temple is a stripped down psychedelic power trio featuring core AMT members Kawabata Makoto and Tsuyama Atsushi on guitar and bass respectively and Ruins/Koenjihyakkei mainman Yoshida Tatsuya on drums. SWR stands for Stone, Woman and Record, a reference to the three bandmember's respective obsessions. It was recorded in a single day and produced by Yoshida Tatsuya.

It's a wild roller coaster ride of an album, fusing the familiar AMT lysergic fretwork and cosmic vibes with Yoshida's more avant garde tendencies, and most of the time it's a rare treat. Yoshida keeps things focussed and to the point - where the AMT mothership will happily explore a single theme for 30 minutes or more, only one track on SWR is longer than 7 minutes and the music is constantly shifting and mutating, veering between the familiar space rock jams and Beefheart/Faust inspired avant rock freak outs, the whole thing wandering from mood to mood with a logic unique to itself. All of this brings out the best in Kawabata Makoto, possibly the finest psychedelic guitarist on the planet today, and anchors his flights of fancy firmly to some very bumpy ground. In addition to the main instruments there are occasional vocals and bursts of violin to enliven the proceedings, but the best moments are when the trio lock into a spacy groove and blast off for the outer cosmos, which they do to staggering effect on 'Stone,Woman and Record' and maintain for most of the second half of the album.

Not everything on the album comes off perfectly, but there isn't a dull moment and if anything there are too many ideas struggling for attention here rather than too few. At the time of this album's release it was announced that SWR was to be a permanent line up alongside the Melting Paraiso UFO and the Cosmic Inferno. So far this is their only release - hopefully more will follow, including recordings of their incendiary live performances. Recommended.