ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE

Yet another standout of demented debauchery has to be the lysergic lumpenproletariat of the Japanese underground, the Nagoya born ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O. which is mercifully often shortened to merely ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE or for the even less ambitious, simply AMT. Led by the restless visions of freak guitarist Makoto Kawabat also known as Speed Guru, this collective of numerous performers has been cranking out the farthest out trips in musical form since 1995 with well over 70 studio albums under its belt and an endless list of crossover acts ranging from bands such as Acid Mothers Temple & Space Paranoid to the Daevid Allen collaborations including Acid Mothers Gong. The collective has unleashed some of the least recognizable musical / noise hybrids that took its inspiration from progressive rock and Krautrock as well as the experimental modern classical composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti.

With more releases than any sane individual could possibly soak in, i have been loath to explore the massive canon of these sonic sorcerers bent on taking the craziest 70s Krautrock freakery and multiplying the detachment in just about every possible way. This was the album that introduced me to the mighty ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE and pretty much the only one i've yet encountered as their albums tend to be sprawling, completely improvisational and well over an hour's playing time and such is the case with this second release PATAPHYSICAL FREAK OUT MU!! which reared its ugly head in the psychedelic underground in 1999. With such blatant truth in advertising you pretty much know what to expect with this one. While facets of traditional musical styles add a touch of Earthly connection to the unhinged savagery that awaits you with this one, the album features a mere five tracks that will steal just over 68 minutes of your precious attention span and still leave you wondering what in the world you just encountered!

For the majority of the tracks minus the near 26-minute closer "Blue Velvet Blues," the tracks are what you could refer to as psychedelic medleys where one completely whacked out trip cedes to another. The perfect example is the opening "Cosmic Audrey / Acid Takion" which begins with spoken French dialogue from Audrey Ginestet reminding of the space whisperer moments of Gilli Smyth of classic Gong. Once the dialogue drifts off into the past the psychedelic noise rock rears its ugly head with an incessant sprawling display of frenetic drumming outdone only by the unorthodox guitar brutality of Kawabata. With enough energetic drive to melt down a nuclear reactor, Kawabata showcases some of the freakiest guitar antics that make most noise rock bands look like chump change. While the compelling opener gets you all hot and bothered and ready for more disorienting head trips, the pointless "White Summer of Love / Third Eye of the Whole World" simply nurtures an folky cyclical loop accompanied by a bunch of effects and what sounds like Yoko Ono during mating season.

The four parter "Golden Bat Blues Dead / Mr. Hardy Guidey Man / Magic Aûm LSD / Astrological Overdrive" sounds like it's trying to emulate a Jimi Hendrix style only what he would have delivered during his final moments before he overdosed. The tracks morphs into a hurdy-gurdy meditation and then becomes a vocal pop track gone wrong with dissonant jangly guitar chords and sounding like the chanting of the Jim Jones "Jonestown" koolaid cult just before they dropped over dead. "Right About Rainbow I / Your My Only Super Sunshine / Right About Rainbow II" delivers more of the spaced out psychedelic folk with lots of oscillating swirlies and then some guitar reverb from hell that soon dominates the soundscape. Repetitive folk strumming for minutes with pure unadulterated chaos looming above is the modus operendi with this one and then it just gets louder and more well? PATAPHYSICAL which by the way refers to the French absurdist concept of a philosophy or science dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics, intended as a parody of the methods and theories of modern science and often expressed in nonsensical language. Hey! I think we found the perfect soundtrack for this very concept!

The closing "Blue Velvet Blues" is a typical ACID MOTHERS 20-minute sprawler that journeys into the world of long drawn out cyclical riffing that glacially ratchets up the tension and then drifts between caustic guitar fuzz feedback laden passages and softer Spaghetti Western / surf rock toned guitar styles with the local space whisperer Cotton Casino delivering nonsensical utterances from the unknown. Did i say the track goes on and on and on? Well it does. It seems like it's on perpetual loop mode. Well one thing is for sure and that is that this is definitely some of the most extreme expressions of psychedelic rock ever created. ACID MOTHERS goes for the lysergia jugular in just about every way possible but for all its attempts to be the weirdest, loudest, most detached from reality and the closest musical interpretation of a very bad LSD trip, the music is mostly monotonous and rather dull. PATAPHYSICAL FREAK OUT MU!! is one of those experiences that really takes you somewhere new upon first exposure but the problem is that it's not somewhere where you really want to return as is the case with the bulk of ATM's vast canon of quantity over quality. It's a fun spin every now and again because of the fact there's nothing really to grasp onto and once you've completely forgotten about it in a few years it's a welcome experience to explore once again. A decent heavy dosage of LSD soaked psych noise rock. Not sure what to call this but ultimately it's only something you can occasionally revisit lest you loose your total connection to reality.

Since I discovered ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE I thought that the name of the band was an invitation to listen to their albums under the influence of an acid, I'd never tasted acids but I'm sure that if I ever taste one I'll do it listening to these Japanese dudes.

The music of this band is clearly founded on classic European psychedelic bands such as HAWKWIND, GONG, DZYAN or GURU GURU (members of ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE have collaborated with members of GONG and GURU GURU in parallel projects) but clearly they took that influence to an even more intense level of experimentation.

Kawabata MAKOTO's guitar solos are one of a kind: the bubbling sound that never ends and goes through the entire album (there are almost no consistent riffs, but only very energetic solos) and is accompanied by the incessant drumming by Koizumi HAJIME creates the atmosphere of this album filled with the Gilli SMYTH-like vocal lines. The occasional acoustic guitar lines accompanied with synthesizers keeps the ACID atmosphere even when MAKOTO's electric guitar is absent in the songs.

Everything in this album is beyond Psychedelic/Acid rock: this is out of this world.

Suggest the beginning shot of the first massive bombast "Anthem Of The Outer Space" could easily drive us mad. The first quiet guitar play reminds us of a similar taste to "Blue Velvet Blues" ... meaningless voices and sensually shouting guitar kicks sound like unexpected chemical top note in a matured whisky. Likewise, too complicated and asymmetric is the battle field created with polyrhythmic drumming / bass play and quirky magical guitar pitches in the middle part. The last pop / rock part is sorta danceable, enjoyable moment leaning towards "on-media" pop / rock in 80s. "The Targeted Planet" flavours completely of Krautrock, with weird bouzouki vibes, tape recorder- based eerie sounds, or bad mad voices ... all of which should be what Buh Records tries to exhibit, I imagine. The last "Forsaken Moonman" is like noisy, crazy, explosive sound dizziness. Sounds like AMT always play such a mass of noise upon stage, letting the audience dance psychedelically under psychic agent smoke.

We should be amazed at them, who can easily create tons of sound production ... not enough Neues though ... ;)

On the contrary, the last short one "Woman From A Hell" is a pop, catchy pleasure. Needless to say this song is filled with spaceship travelling sounds too and, drenched in danceable and enjoyable guitar machine gun and vocal explosion. AMTers and the audience can get excited and confused with joy. Why not addicted after such a black sabbath-y starshine?

But this much is obvious: their latest-to-date adventure is the freakout jam album of 2016. To squares like me, for whom music is the only reliable narcotic, it could almost be a gateway drug to a higher dimension, where the fabric of space-time itself is webbed by killer grooves, paranormal guitars, and otherworldly ambient chillouts.

'Freakout' might be the wrong word however, because the album isn't random at all. Replays emphasize the calculation behind the apparent anarchy, and the macro-scale structure of the band's juggernaut sonic attack. There's freedom here to be sure, but it isn't freeform: one minute the music is adrift in a beatific void; the next it's being scrambled in a loud, one-chord motorik blender, insanely strung out (in both duration and mindset) but interrupted by unexpected moments of pinpoint unison playing.

A lazy comparison can be made to Ozric Tentacles and other Space Rockers, but the music of Acid Mothers Temple begins at that point of apogee where the Ozrics typically run out of fuel. The album's opening riff is distinctly Japanese in character, appropriate to the group's country of origin. But with tracks titles like "Nebulous Hyper Meditation", and instrument credits ("...at the time of this recording") that include 'Speed Guru', 'Space & Time', and 'Another Dimension', it's clear we've left the Earth far behind.

It all leads toward a dreamy acoustic guitar epilogue, and a several-minutes-long electronic hum sounding like an audio snapshot of the residual cosmic microwave background from the Big Bang. Four stars from a transported newbie, with a possible fifth star refracted in the much larger AMT omniverse.

Therefore they have created two high regards for "In C" ... I imagine strongly, distortedly (not a criticism but an admiration) influenced by Terry, Atsushi / Yoshimitsu / Makoto might have created and launched their minimal explosion "In E", that sounds crazy, spicy, and spacey just like their previous (and following) creations. This track is so drenched with ethnic flavour by tribal instruments, maybe along with Atsushi's inspiration, enough to exert difference from Terry's C upon the texture of sound. My pleasure to find such a consideration via their sound "identity" itself. Atsushi's squid-like bass play and Yoshimitsu's sharp drumming, both of which tighten their rhythm basis, are splendid and we cannot avoid this balanced weight at all. Of course, Makoto's swift guitar impression makes a bunch of stardust here and there, and yes, Hiroshi's synthesizer drives us mad obviously. Another fantasy really.

"In D", produced by Makoto, is more and more minimalistic and Rileyistic than other creations by them, but not only minimalistic but also flickering they (especially the producer Makoto) exert upon this track. Cannot say simply but let me feel they might express something difficult around the current world (not mention in detail here though). Like transcendental meditation or tranquilizing medication, their inorganic tiny sound word absorbs us completely, and takes us away permanently ... as if with telling us something of a risky business.

This is such a great minimalistic music blended with fantastic space rock, let me say, sorry for my very brief words.

Perhaps part of it's strength comes from being released on experimental music label Important Records. First issues came on beautiful light blue swirled vinyl, with second pressings being on black. The LP packaging is stunning in addition, with an uncoated thick stock gatefold cover with wonderful, rather subdued and minimal, artwork than what they usually produce for their releases. Will hope for much more of this sort of thing from them in the future. Highly recommended.