Here we go once more, (yet) another journey into the cosmic inferno. One worth taking, again and again. We're already pretty darn tanned from it. It seems like just last week (actually, on list #299, so four weeks ago) we had a new live AMT disc, Pink Lady Lemonade on Riot Season. Now here's the first studio document from this latest AMT lineup, featuring new drummer/vocalist/cosmic shaman/etc., Pikachu, also of Afrirampo. Those who have Pink Lady Lemonade will note that, on the back cover of this, the band's still wearing those ridiculous matching Hawaiian shirts/shorts (in Pikachu's case, a dress) with palm trees, flowers, sailboats, and beaches on 'em. Weird. As always.
And as always, they deliver the psychedelic hippie rock freakout goods. And this time, with a fair amount of structure. It's divided into several "movements" which make it seem especially composerly.
Track one, "1st Movement: Cosmic Inferno's Gate" is perhaps so titled not only 'cause it's the first track, the entrance to the album, but also 'cause a good portion of it features a scraping string-drone (or is it a squealing horn?) of some sort that sounds a bit like a creaky door being slowly, very slowly opened.
Then -boom- the 2nd Movement kicks in. A heavy, lumbering riff and lotsa spacey FX. Vocals eventually enter the fray, singing the praises of the "Master Of The Cosmic Inferno". It's starting to sound a lot like a J.A. Caesar album from the '70s, one of those wild psychedelic theatrical soundtrack productions. If you're a Japanese psych nerd you may have heard of 'em. Solar Anus covered one of their songs, as well. Someday hopefully we'll list some reissues. But we digress. Anyway, this track goes a lot of places over its nearly 23 minute length, ranging from frenzied guitar squiggle to gentle female vocal lullaby. Quite the tour de force.
Then, a mellow interlude. This third movement is called "Cosmic Blood Feast". Sounds like half a Roger Corman double feature, or their tribute to Herschell Gordon Lewis. Droning horn and plinking bells. Quite nice. It's the calm before the storm of "4th Movement: Ecstasy Into The Cosmic Inferno", a whirling dervish buildup of distorted snake charmer guitar and ecstatic (indeed) vocal chant. Which brings us to track, er, movement 5: "Usisi", much more folky and melodic. And then the album wraps up with "6th Movement: Shalom Cosmic Inferno" and it's back to the acid guitar wailing from Kawabata that really pays the bills. Whew! Altogether, it's about everything you could want from a journey into the cosmic inferno. Even if you haven't been on board the AMT train this whole time for every last release, this one might be a good one to pick up, though your tolerance for some of the more wild vocal excesses here, when Pikachu really gets riled up, might be a factor in that decision.
Another AQ list, another Acid Mothers Temple. We've certainly said that before, and I'm sure we'll say it again! Along with the usual, "and hey, for a band that puts out an album every fortnight or so, they haven't let us down yet!" comment. A view that Just Another Band From The Cosmic Inferno does not dispel, so long as you're into the Electric Heavyland side of their output. Yep, this one's been billed as kind of a Comets On Fire styled blow-out, a distortion-filled freak fest of rock n' roll mayhem. And so it is, in the Electric Heavyland vein for sure. Two long songs (an exhausting/ecstatic 20 minutes followed by a grueling/godlike 44 minutes) full of riffing and leads and spacey effects and the pounding efforts of not one but two drummers! Fairly indulgent but that's what these guys are all about. And as some kind of nod to how many releases they have, this one comes wrapped in Stephen O'Malley graphics by the way, something that they amazingly enough haven't done before, even though the immediate effect of his design, since it's so striking and ubiquitous, is to make you think you've seen the disc already!
By the way, the sticker on the front of this proclaims that this is the *debut* album from a brand NEW band. 'Cause it's AMT & The Cosmic Inferno, rather than the previous "& The Melting Paraiso UFO". You noticed that, right? And the line-up is different too, featuring new members Tabata Mitsuru (Zeni Geva, Boredoms, Leningrad Blues Machine), Shimura Koji (Miminokoto, High Rise, Mainliner, White Heaven) and Okano Futoshi (Subvert Blaze, Ghost, Cosmic Invention) alongside AMT stalwarts "dancin' king" Higashi Hiroshi and "speed guru" Kawabata Makoto...which means Atsushi Tsuyama is gone, but you'll find him still playing with Kawabata in the Acid Mothers Temple SWR band. With their many combined years of experience playing crazy psychedelic rock music, all these new AMT recruits certainly had no difficulty at all in generating the Cosmic Inferno of sound heard here. Probably could do it in their sleep, not that you could sleep through this, played properly loud!
And of course, the Ektro-released Anthem Of The Space cd on the last AQ list was also from this new AMT & The Cosmic Inferno band, even if this is being billed as their debut. If we had to choose between the two (which true AMT fans would never do), we'd go with the (unfortunately out of stock at the moment tho!) Anthem one 'cause it's just the weighter of the two, gaining in effect from the length of its tracks and the repetition of its riffs where this one seems more like something we've heard before from Kawabata & Co., them just playing 'til the tape runs out 'cause they can. Not that most AMT fans would want to stop 'em sooner!
We didn't know it would come out on cd yet here it is: Acid Mother's Temple playing Terry Riley's famed composition "In C", wherein the musicians are instructed to play a series of 53 repetitive sections over and over as long as they wish. Almost all the
The original Eclipse-label LP version has been repressed as well (with better constructed covers than before) and is also in stock.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
As if they didn't already have enough releases of their own, now Makoto Kawabata's Acid Mothers Temple have begun popping up on split releases with other bands -- recently with Kinski, and now with NY's Escapade. This should do wonders for Escapade's profile within the wider indie-rock community as they're a band definitely stuck in a geeky space/prog rock ghetto that most AMT fans probably don't venture into. A place where bands have names like... 'Escapade'! But Escapade are definitely better than their name. They occupy two lengthy tracks here, bookending an even longer, single contribution from everyone's favorite Japanese hippy freaks (well, second favorite maybe now that Ghost is back...) entitled "European Sun". It's a 28 minute drone-out doozy featuring electric sitar, violin, bamboo flute, voice and electronics. Minimalist repetition with ethnic and sci-fi synth frills. Meanwhile, Escapade's two tracks are slow-building spacerock synthfeasts, that fans of AMT, Kinski, Subarachnoid Space, Circle, and the like oughta dig.
These musically indulgent heavy-duty hippies from Japan, who have just been thru here on tour with Mammatus and blew the socks off all who seen 'em, have a new album out (hey, what else is new??). Going by the title of Crystal Rainbow Pyramid Under The Stars, we can understand why whomever entered it into the online cd database that iTunes uses decided to classify its genre as New Age. But New Age this ain't, unless the new age is all about deafening yourself with tangled blasts of distorted FX-laden guitar and flailing drums, as heard on the opening track. Which, by the way, marks a new low in the already dubious AMT song-titling tradition -- it's called "Pussy Head Man From Outer Space"! Uh, ok. It's a brief 7:42 in length, giving way to the 22 minute track two, "Crystal Rainbow Pyramid", which is a bit calmer and maybe even, yes, New Agey though it's far from wimpy. Just a big ol' spacious tripped-out jam, pulsing pleasantly along, getting more and more freaky toward the end. A mere warm up for the third and final track, a REALLY long one, over 40 minutes of "Electric Psilocybin Flashback". You'll wonder where the time went. The first six or so minutes are an insistently strummed Amon Duul II style attack, drifting for a while into a space-jazz interlude (saxophone!!) before we're back to the aforementioned ADII-ish krautrockin', graced with some lovely female vox that do a spot-on Renate Knaup impersonation at times (that wavery, wordless high pitched thing). Wow. And there's more: stretches of placid folk and Eastern drone... yep, this one's a doozy, worth the price of admission alone, especially if you like Yeti by ADII, which we hope you do.
Gotta say: another essential AMT purchase for any fan, and if you know someone into cosmic psych kraut stuff who isn't already into AMT (weird, but possible) then try playing track two or three here for 'em and see what they think!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Side A consists of two songs, entitled "Acid Milk Milky Way Also Jupiter 888" and "Rising From The Cool Fool Inferno". Side B is "Astrological Overdrive"...you get the idea. Japan's freakiest modern psych rock combo, with members of Mainliner/Musica Transonic/Toho Sara, Mandy Blue Heaven, and Omoide Hatoba, among others, brought their trippiness to the US of A not long ago and this lovely-looking double LP is the document. Although the record starts out trippy and spaced out, most of the record leans more toward the heavy psych of Mainliner or White Heaven.
There's a lot of stuff you could buy off this week's list - or any aQ list - that we describe as "psych" or "psychedelic". Psych's an overused descriptor for sure, but we could never be blamed for using it too much with regards to anything by these Japanese communal freaker-outers, the outrageously prolific ensemble known as Acid Mothers Temple (and the something something something or other, usually). Psych psych and more psych, if that's what you want that's what AMT have got!
Here's the latest fix for AMT addicts (just give it a shot if you're not - what could go wrong?), and it's a dang good one if you like to hear 'em rock it and roll it. The first track lives up to its title "Space Speed Suicide" with some real dense psychedelic (there's that word) heavy guitar splurt n' skree. Track two "Skillful Grinning Skull" follows that up with some flute freakery, calming down into a lengthy, echoing, plodding groove, spaced-out all nice like with moaned and muttered vocals, that fans of Can should dig. AMT funk it up a bit on #3 with some hard edged urgent riffery amidst the FX & electronics swirl. The gargled vocals get intense too. That one's called "Born Free Stone Free", and that being the case, they're quite willing to put some Buddhist drone in a free jazz zone on the next track, "Escape Horoscopes". It's loose and tangled at the same time, going forwards and back in bits and blurts and blasts.
Ok, ok, we'll stop with the track-by-track commentary (there's a couple more, including an epic grand finale) or we're bound to use the word psychedelic again. Suffice to say the rest of the record is equally out there, wild and wooly - including one that's an extremely damaged "blues". Once again, AMT deliver the hallucinogenic, higher-than-thou "hard rock" in their inimitable fashion. Anyone who picked up our recent Record Of The Week pick by Makoto Kawabata's Mainliner, might wanna check this out too and see where Kawabata's been flying the AMT mothership lately.
Digipack cd or double lp gatefold vinyl, the latter limited to 1000 copies.
One could be excused for thinking that a new cd from Acid Mothers Temple might be surplus to requirements... yet, while that's for each individual to determine, it must also be said that prolific as these Japanese psych purveyors are (and this isn't even the only new AMT we have, there's another that's a collaboration with Italian band Stearica), there's been nary a dud in their discography.
This one is probably a must for serious fans, since it's devoted to their longtime live staple, an extended track entitled "Pink Lady Lemonade". They've recorded it before, but this is intended as the definitive version. Presented here in four distinct parts, the total piece over 66 minutes long. It's quite a trip, with repetitive chiming guitar, freeform freakouts, sci-fi sound FX, and lots of droned-out whoosh... another endless hour and then some, trance-time well spent with the Acid Mothers!
Nice packaging/design, in a colorful digipack, the cover art oriented in sideways fashion.
Are they? After all, how much of an experiment can it be after you've made, like, several hundred albums? Is it still an experiment the 1,000th time you do it? Though we can usually guess at the results of any "experiment" by this prolific Japanese hippie psych outfit, it's not like we don't want to hear that sound of theirs again and again and again. However, this time 'round it DOES seem that they're going a little further out than usual, and the title isn't simply an excuse for cover graphics parodying the Jimi Hendrix album... The eleven tracks found here are pretty weird, many taking a kitchen sink sound collage approach that just might incorporate everything from blown out freek guitar scramble (of course), to acoustic flute folk, to echoing sound FX, to chaotic cocktail jazz, to garbled electronics and tape manipulations. Not necessarily nothin' they haven't done before, but not quite like this. It comes closer to some early Boredoms stuff or even Hanatarash cut-ups than it does the extended jam-outs of most AMT releases. So yeah, they are experimental. And successfully so, in our pseudoscientific opinion. At least, we found this quite intriguing/entertaining. Welcome to the Acid Mothers Laboratory!
It's taken 6 years, but finally, one of our favorite Acid Mothers Temple records is available again, with fancy new artwork and lots of extra music!
Originally released as the first (and only) installment in tUMULt's aborted picture disc series, 41st Century Splendid Man still ranks as one of AMT's finest moments as far as we're concerned. This stuff comes from WAY before these Japanese avant-hippy heroes began pumping out a brand new release every few weeks. When this psychbomb dropped, these guys were still cloaked in mystery, some fucked up weirdo psychrock commune whose sound was as mysterious and indescribable as whatever strange corner of the universe these guys and gals called home.
The sound is epic and tripped out and druggy, blown out and blissfully psychedelic, AMT at their absolute prime, and one of the tracks features special guest star Tatsuya Yoshida of the Ruins! The original was three extended tracks (35 + minutes) of ultra divine transcendental psych-drone. "41st Century Splendid Man" has to be the most beautiful track AMT have ever recorded. Uncharacteristically tranquil and captivatingly beautiful. Droning, shimmering chimes coalesce into some sort of cosmic Ur-drone, punctuated by simple caveman thuds and epic swooshes, resulting in a grand and gorgeous ambience! The other two tracks from the original 12", "Genesis Of Humanity" and "Dalai Gama", are almost like a single track separated into two movements. The first sees AMT back on more familiar ground, with swooping synths and freak out guitar. A stumbling kosmic krautrock, with motorik rhythms and free guitar, amidst a swampy wash of rumbling low end and squealing synths. The track erupts into bubbling atonal out-rock exploration splattered with mad scientist synthesisers as the whole thing slowly mutates into 'cosmic slop' of the nth degree, becoming gradually free-er and free-er. The second 'movement' is all slithery free jazz with bubbling cauldrons of synth sputter, wild keyboards and Can-like rhythms until the whole thing gets all dreamy, eventually blissing out completely.
For this cd reissue, from Brazilian label Essence, there are two extra tracks tacked on that perfectly compliment the three originals. The cd opener, "Ruck Zuck", is an unhinged Hawkwind style heart of the sun, black hole freaked out space jam, a motorik krautrock groove, buried in FX and clouds of shimmer and skree, strange squealing vocals, streaks of feedback and dense swaths of whir and bloop and bleep.
The disc closes with the bizarrely titled "Hell Eskimo Or Polyhedral Mu", a 14 plus minute abstract ambient epic, that twists and contorts, slithers and creeps, beginning as a full on brain melting drug jam eventually transforming into a blissy jazzy post rocky slither that floats hypnotically through glistening clouds of glimmer and shimmer and sparkle, a super nova dappled interstellar drift that sounds a bit like a more damaged psychedelic Necks. Fuck yeah.
Super gorgeous deluxe packaging, a full color Stoughton style paste on gatefold, with the original cover art subtly altered on the cover (sorry, no naked ladies) and some awesome psychedelic liner notes on the inside. And just to avoid any collector confusion, the notes mention the original 41st AMT being a 10", but as mentioned above it was in fact a picture disc 12"! This cd reissue, while not nearly as limited as the 12", is still limited, this time to only 1000 COPIES!
WAY WAY WAY recommended!!
The out of print, year 2000 vinyl-only double LP release from everyone's favorite Japanese communal hippy band finally makes it to compact disc! Two compact discs, actually, which makes room for 44 minutes of bonus track action!! Kawabata Makoto, Cotton Casino,
*Acid Mothers Alert* *Acid Mothers Alert* *Accccidd...Moowaaaaa....whrwhrwhrwhrrrrrr...* Oops, better replace the batteries in that thing. Our Acid Mothers alert siren is getting worn out by the pace of this Japanese psych commune's ridiculously prolific output. But as always, we're not complaining.
Acid Motherly Love, boasting both naked ladies (2) and UFOs (1) in the front cover photo, has a LOT going on, it's a delirious mishmash of wild wah wah psych throb, absurd exotica chant, druggy tomfoolery, and paranoid drones. The influence of bassist and "cosmic joker" Atsushi Tsuyama seems strong on Acid Motherly Love, it's got more goofy eccentricies even than usual, reminding us a bit of old stuff by Tsuyama's other band, Omoide Hatoba. Especially puzzling is the inclusion of what sound like weird spoken word samples in a male American voice (Rod McKuen??) which, after perusing the liner notes, we figure is probably the contribution of guest "king of beer" Stoo Odom (of Graves Brothers Deluxe and Subarachnoid Space). We confirmed this with a quick internet search, which turned up an admission of guilt in the midst of Mr. Odom's Graves Brothers Japan Tour Diary, wherein it is also revealed that he was told this new AMT album has "something to do with the Plastic Ono Band and a sperm cell that fails". Hmm.
To wrap up, we must say, as much as we like the music, ol' AMT has really reached a nadir in the song-title dep't. This one's got typical head scratchers like "Astro Elvis E.S.P." and "Johnny Johnny Jerusalem", but also a 20 minute, 3-part suite entitled "Douchebag" (part b of which is called "Sometime In Your Pussy"). Well, we bet they were laffing it up around the bong when they came up with these... but it sounds like they're actually chanting "Douchebag" during that track, did they really have to do that?
D'you think that back when psychedelic-guru-to-be Kawabata Makoto first started growing a beard, he ever thought he'd release quite so very many albums? Heck we've reviewed more releases by his band Acid Mothers Temple than any other artist EVER. (We should check on that, but it's probably true.) Yet each AMT album still seems like a bit of an event, with cosmic significance.
What's special about this new one? Well, aside from having the dubiously excellent invented word "Astrorgasm" in its title, it features the dulcet tones of singer Cotton Casino, a big fave of many AMT fans, back after a long absence from the band. She sings sweetly over the spaced-out sounds on offer here, which range from the quietly folky, to full-on freakout action.
There's four looong tracks, a side of vinyl apiece (it's a double lp, alternatively available as a really long cd)
Track one is a new version of their "Dark Star Blues", previously heard on 2002's Does The Cosmic Shepherd Dream Of Electric Tapirs?, the "Dark Star" reference making us think about just how much AMT has become a (cool) Grateful Dead for a certain segment of underground music hipsterdom, the band ironically embracing/encouraging the comparison (and why not, it's not a bad business model). This song starts off as one of the folky ones, with a stately, vaguely Middle Eastern feel, but builds up and erupts into acid guitar wailin' before too long. That's followed by the delicate dronery of track 2, "Pleasure Mantra Of Sorrows", with swooshing (and sometimes intense) electronics sounding like field recordings of birds atwitter or insects abuzz. Lovely.
Lovely, too, and repetitively mesmeric, is track 3, "Kiss In The Tangerine Dream House", which subtly segues into total guitar freakout. Then there's the final, title track, an "astrorgasm" indeed, with krauty propulsion and even more noisy freakout guitar, getting into extreme Mainliner or Musica Transonic territory. Something for everyone, who's a Kawabata (or Cotton Casino fan), in other words.
Super limited (500 copies worldwide, we got about 20) double live album recorded in London in 2004 from the Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. packaged in a plain white sleeve with a photocopied insert like the classic old Stones and Zeppelin bootleg lps and pressed on gorgeous opaque white / red / black / brown swirled vinyl. This is supposedly the final release for the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. incarnation of AMT, and what a way to go, four sides of deliriously spacey and fully freaked out psychedelic Ur-rock, from kaleidoscopic bursts of druggy space rock, to long stretches of almost meditative otherworldy drone, haunting chants, bizarre soaring operatic trills, pulsing relentless dirges, and wild free epic OUT THERE musical explorations, all drenched in swirling distorted guitars and clouds of hazy psych rock splatter. Very lo-fi recording, it all sounds like maybe it was recorded with one mic, set right in the middle of the room, but it just makes the whole thing sound that much more immediate and chaotic and furious and alive. Again, VERY LIMITED, when these are gone they are gone for good.
Y'know, if we somehow kept EVERY Acid Mothers Temple (or AMT related) release in stock, we'd have to move to a bigger store! Perhaps we'd be forced to annex the bead shop next door (that would be cool) and then somehow fit several miles of additional shelving in there. One could peruse the endless aisles of this expanded, comprehensive Acid Mothers Temple section on foot, but that would be tiring. Probably it would be a better idea if we installed a moving sidewalk, or invested in a fleet of those motorized, up-right Segway scooters for customers to use. Each equipped with a very large basket, of course. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, we'll have to be realistic and simply maintain a small selection of our AMT faves, and of course stock their new releases as they (ahem) trickle in. Such as this one!
Have You Seen The Other Side Of The Sky? is Ace Fu's follow-up to AMT's excellent Gong-tribute Iao Chant From The Cosmic Inferno, but unlike that fairly focused record this is more of a psychedelic smorgasbord of all the usual, unusual AMT ingredients -- spacey shortwave transmissions, one-legged flute freakery, acoustic folk balladry a la Ghost, goofy song titles, droning fake ragas, throat singing, heavy fuzzed-out mayhem, and more... all good stuff we like! Well, except for the goofy song titles ("Asimo's Naked Breakfast: Rice and Shrine"? "I Wanna Be Your Bicycle Saddle"?).
There's six diverse tracks here, including a killer half-hour epic, that all really deliver on the established AMT aesthetic. Fans will be pleased. And even though our building plans for an Acid Mothers Temple dedicated wing of Aquarius Records remain a pipe dream, we'll certainly make space for this particular AMT release in our crowded racks for the foreseeable future, it's a good one!
The heavily lauded, AQ fave, psychedelic hippie Japanese collective led by Makoto Kawabata now graces us with two excellent side-long pieces on this LP-only release. The first is a well-executed version of Terry Riley's famous conceptual composition "In
That said, we have a bone to pick with the packaging of this album. If you're going to fetishize a band (and let's face it Acid Mothers Temple is the fetish band of the moment), then for heavens sake do the packaging right! It's not bad looking, just shoddily constructed. Eclipse pressed the album on impressively weighty vinyl, and it boasts commendably pretty artwork, but unfortunately the gatefold cover is printed on glossy yet flimsy cardstock that doesn't fold right, will not lay flat, and is already coming apart at the seams. Furthermore, there's only one LP but two empty compartments in the sleeve, making for an inevitable small disappointment when said empty sleeve doesn't even have an insert or anything. Sigh. Of course, it would have cost more to do the packaging better, but for the $17 we have to charge for this you think Eclipse could have afforded it! Oh well, maybe they didn't know that it was going to turn out so poorly. And packaging aside, this *is* a great AMT album.
It's really hard to keep up with these guys. We love pretty much everything they do, but they are quite possibly one of the most prolific bands around, and it can get frustrating, trying to take it all in, and sometimes that frustration can manifest itself as not giving a shit, which would be a shame, cuz whenever we find ourselves not giving a shit, and we manage to overcome that reaction, we are always totally blown away by the magical musical mysteries these guys are capable of conjuring up.
In O To Infinity marks two milestones of sorts for the bands, and for fans, one is the return of Cotton Casino to the fold, the other is the group's musical progression from their seminal cover of Terry Riley's "In C", the band figuring that the denotation of a specific key is mostly arbitrary, thus we have these 4 extended sonic explorations, each in their own key, those 'keys' being 'O', 'A', 'Z' and of course 'Infinity'.
And as much as we love all the different facets of AMT, this might be our favorite, their blissed out cosmic space drift, long form dronescapes, otherworldly kosmiche ambience, lush clouds of swirling effects, muted churning rhythms, guitars transformed into mysterious noisemakers, long tones layered and intertwined, the swoop of processed backwards sounds, but heck, this is AMT, so the do end up rocking out, launching into a propulsive krautrock groove, jamming away within that constantly swirling and shifting cloud of swirling psychedelia.
"In A" is all chants and grunts and weird vocalizations, some sort of alien ritual, performed in yet another cloud of shimmering drones and grinding muted hiss, a demonic barnyard emitting mewls and squeaks and groans, all bathed in reverb and delay, building to a dizzying outer space swirl. "In Z" is a futuristic freak out of strange bleeps and bloops, laid over some sort of abstract cosmic jazz drift, subtly rhythmic, but way free, a shimmering fog of glistening electronics and malfunctioning effects, which gets downright crunchy and chaotic near the end.
And finally, "In Infinity", which contrary to what we were expecting, is the most 'rock' of the bunch, a wild sprawling avant jazz, space rock, future funk groove that goes on and on and on, a motorik beat, underpinning wild electronic squiggles, woozy synths and organs, all manner of tangled instrumental freakout, culminating in a total heart of the sun, bleary eyed prismatic sonic blowout.
Another AMT winner, to add to that dedicated shelf in your house that by now must be bowing beneath the weight of the previous hundred or so winners. Regardless, WAY recommended.
One of our favorite Acid Mothers Temple records available again thanks to the kind folks at Swordfish. Originally released on the band's own label and long out of print (we reviewed it originally way back in 2000), this new version is ultimately the same with a few minor alterations, different liner notes, now in a jewel case instead of a cardboard sleeve, but it's the music that matters, and the music is mind blowing.
Ivan Piskov's Wild Gals A Go-Go was these Japanese space travellers' third album and is jam packed with freaked out avant-hippy insanity. "Tumultuous psychedelic trip sound...Potentially massive frontal lobe damage. Real punch-drunk music!" is what it says inside. And that's pretty right on. Ultra epic psychedelic guitars blown into fuzzy druggy psychedelic space rock madness that we can never seem to get enough of.
This pretends to be a soundtrack to a supposed "psych-nonsense" film by alleged "Russian mondo film" director Ivan Piskov, but we're pretty sure that's all a put on. Regardless, check it out, especially if you need your fix of outerspacepsychrock!!
Previously released as an LP on the Eclipse label long ago in 2000, then on cd by Swordfish in 2001 with 2 bonus tracks, this album has been out of print for some time now, which is a shame 'cause we always want to recommend it to folks looking for the AMT essentials. Thankfully now at last Swordfish has repressed it!
La Novia is a dark and droning take on the usual Acid Mothers Temple mix of hippie freak rock and experimental psych weirdness, with lots of faux-throat singing! Apparently this is based on traditional "Occitanian" folk music, which from the album graphics would appear to be a region of France. Hmm? (Later AMT projects have continued to make this particular, peculiar ethnic connection.) In any event, it's a heavy, forty-minute trip-out mixing everything from distorted guitar and spacey synth to violin and bouzouki. Plus another twenty haunting minutes, via the bonus tracks. Really great, heavy duty stuff. One of our all-time-favorite AMT discs -- and that's saying something, since there are now so many, and most are so good. On La Novia, Makoto Kawabata and Co. (this album including erstwhile member Cotton Casino) certainly furthered their quest for ultimate psychedelic world domination!
Here's another digital document to add to your sagging shelf of Acid Mothers Temple releases! Kawabata Makoto & co.'s brand of Japanese psychedelic hippy freak rock excess is presented here live (i.e. totally in their element) with great sound. Wild and wooly rockin', featuring two drummers for maximum pounding overdrive. The air the drummers churn up teems with spacey sci-fi synth phaser sound fx, acid flashback guitar riffage and some cosmic vocalizations. Monks with bells seem to enter the stage at one point, before AMT kicks into a fuzzed out Blue Cheerish monster jam...this actually occurs a couple times during the 40+ minutes of the disc's final, third track "La Novia ~ Speed Guru". They also do live fave "In E" (track 2) and a kinda mellow eight minute intro (track 1). Wish we'd been there, but this is the next best thing. Originally released as a limited cd-r on the Acid Mothers Temple's own label, now reissued in the States by Eclipse in probably equally limited numbers. We've only got a few...
This long out of print slab of heavy Japanese psych from aQ faves Acid Mothers Temple (or more accurately, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.), originally released on vinyl, via the Detector label, WAY back in 2000, is one of a handful of new reissues from Brazilian label Essence (along with two Circle cds, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), and is presented in a super swank mini-lp style gatefold sleeve, with the original sound of the lp, totally remastered, and revved up, heard for the first time the way it was meant to be heard. 'Cause according to the band, the guy who originally mastered the vinyl said the sound was "too heavy" to be mastered for vinyl, hence the sub par sound. And while the cd version definitely does sound better, it's still plenty murky and muddy and lo-fi, raw and in the red, with the band a wild chaotic squall of psychedelic sound, with lots of buzz and feedback, you can hear people in the audience talking here and there, the band offers up some funny between song banter, all of that non musical stuff woven into some of the band's fiercest rocking ever.
The record starts off all drifty and shimmery, the band unfurling lush layers of whirling sound, wreathed in clouds of sci-fi swoops and bleeps, it doesn't take long for them to launch into it, and they never let up. Channeling High Rise and White Heaven and all the Japanese psych greats that came before, Kawabata Makoto and company tear it up, the guitars a constant barrage of wild Hendrixian blow outs, and tangled sprays of furious shred, the drums pound desperately in the background, the bass is nothing more than a low end thrum, and EVERYTHING is doused in effects, rendering all the sounds washed out and woozy and druggy. Occasionally the band do lock into some more krautrock like grooves, and its then that the bass comes to the fore and definitely drives the group, but most of Live In Occident is spent in full of freaked out psych-noise blow out mode, sounding like a modern version of the avant Japanese jazz noise of folks like Takayanagi, albeit run through a million fuzz pedals and transmitted from the furthest reaches of the galaxy.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
*Acid Mothers Temple Alert!*
Only the second AMT album to be released by UK's Riot Season label (the first being 2004's Minstrel In The Galaxy) but, oh, maybe the ten thousandth AMT album overall, right? But we're beginning to think that if AMT were to stop (or even slow down) releasing records, the Universe might end. It just could be that it's their continual championing/channelling of the '70s psychedelic krautrock freakout sound, with their typical overload of druggy electronics and crazy guitars and seductive space whispers, that's keeping the great Cosmic pulse from petering out. Certainly there's enough energy on Myth Of The Love Electrique to power a cosmos or two. This is one of those all-bases-covered AMT releases, with the band utterly rockin' and kicking out the jams on two of the four lengthy tracks here, "The Man From Giacobinid Meteor Comet" and "Love Electrique", while also mellowing out for the acoustic-kraut-folk-drone mystery of "Five Dimensional Nightmare" and a beyond-blissful 20+ minute version of live staple "Pink Lady Lemonade (May I Drink You Once Again)?"
Yep, thanks to albums like this, you can count on the Universe not crapping out anytime soon. A very worthy AMT effort indeed.
More weirdness from our favorite Japanese avant-hippy musical commune. Starting off with some heavy, throbbing electric psych jamming ("Psycho Buddha"), and then calming down into the folky drone-chant of "Space Age Ballad", this disc promises to be as
This essential document of Acid Mothers Temple's early years is finally released on vinyl. Nice and thick and in a gorgeous gatefold with a bonus track, the side long 'Blue Velvet Blues Coda'. This record starts with AMT at their most rocking, dreamy
If Acid Mothers Temple overload hasn't caught up with you yet (what? never!) then we've got something you'll want: ANOTHER new and, let's face it, quite excellent album from Kawabata Makoto and freaky friends, this one coming to us courtesy of Circle bassist Jussi Lehtisalo's Ektro imprint in Finland!
First off, look closely -- the cover's not a Sgt. Pepper's homage at all, but a Frank Zappa one. Then, start listening. From fx-laden spaced-out rock jams with witchy Ono-esque female vocal babble to entrancingly beautiful acoustic folk psych to *more* spaced-out jams to angular no-wavy guitar pop improv instrumentals to gonzo rock n' roll tributes to just plain weird vocals-and-effects interludes, this runs the gamut of AMT indulgences. Seventy plus minutes of Hawkwind-meets-Boredoms madness, with punning titles like "Man On The Holy Mountain" and "Porks' Bomb In Aztec part.O"! All the synth swirls and zaps on here make this sound a bit like a cheesy radio commerical (minus the voice that would be announcing a monster truck rally), a kitschy reference that these pro wrestling lovin' hippies would certainly embrace!
So, yet another cosmic, fun-filled trip to the Temple. If we had to choose, maybe we'd give the edge to last week's AMT release "Univers Zen Ou De Zero A Zero" (for being somewhat less, how shall we say, confusing), but who has to choose?
Once again Japan's Acid Mothers Temple return (as they do it seems with almost the regularity of the sunrise/sunset), delivering another spaced out opus of psychedelic splurge, wowing us again with -both- the quantity, and quality, of their output.
And yet, Makoto Kawabata & Co. manage to surprise us with this one, at least when opening track "Chinese Flying Saucer" first kicks in. Check it out, AMT sound a heck of lot like early Led Zeppelin here, or more precisely, like Zep meets Hawkwind, as the 12 minute long track - bound to be a live favorite - rocks onwards up into Flying Saucer land.
That out of their system, the rest of the disc keeps the electronic Hawkwindy FX a-swirl, but mellows out away from the heavy rock riffage towards more of a hazy, shimmering, backporch-of-the-commune folky vibe. "Back Door Man Of Ghost Rails Inn" in fact reminds us a lot of those other Japanese hippies, Ghost, especially in the acid jabbering vocal dep't. The tracks "Chakra 24" (short) and "Shine On You Crazy Dynamite" (long) are similarly trippy and blissful.
But then, there's the album-closing cut "Electric Death Mantra" which pretty much describes itself with its title, except that title won't tell you that, by the end of the track, AMT work themselves into a very much Middle Eastern sounding frenzy, like they've been listening to a lot of vintage Turkish psych, a la Mogollar and Erkin Koray.
So, from its pastiche of Zep beginning to its dervish-like ending, and all the trippiness in-between, another fine addition to anyone's AMT collection.
One of Japanese hippy rock impresario Makoto Kawabata's more blissful exercises now makes the all-so-appropriate jump from compact disc to vinyl. As with Eclipse's vinyl version of AMT's "Pataphysical Freak Out MU!!", we're faced with bonus material, the title track in fact. Plus the record is pressed on 180 gram vinyl, and it's in a swank gatefold package. Deluxe in other words.
Here's what we had to say about the original cd version of this album, released on PSF in 2000:
The night before recording this album Father Moo (aka Kawabata Makoto) took his handmaidens and lackeys on a lysergic excursion of metaphysical proportions. We'll spare you the details of the trip (as most acid recollections have little literary worth). Nevertheless, "Troubadours From Another Heavenly World" is the result of said trip, leaving the Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO nursing a collective hangover resulting from too little sleep and too many chemicals. With sore muscles that have never been sore before, they vaguely recall making an album of lugubrious psych rock, like a really good Bardo Pond record, that oozes out thick walls of mellow cosmic jams and half conscious female vocals. Certainly not as incendiary and crazy as some previous Acid Mothers Temple recordings, but this provides some worthy psychedelic exploration nonetheless.
France's Fractal label gets into the Acid Mothers Temple game with this eagerly-awaited new album (we're told it's only their sixth studio effort, though we didn't actually count 'em ourselves). "Univers Zen Ou De Zero A Zero" starts off with some over the top heavy psych wankery (entitled "Electric Love Machine") that might be leftover from their Electric Heavyland sessions, but as with most AMT releases, you never know what's coming next! Track two marks a shift into more mellow pastures, as Cotton Casino's dreamy voice, acoustic instruments, and gentle synth washes make for a nice interlude, before some seriously droned-out howl comes in on the very next track ("Blues Pour Bible Noire") to hammer you for 20 or so minutes. Later in the disc there's another epic 20+ minute track of medieval psych ("Soleil de Cristal et Lune d'Argent") with Cotton singing/chanting over some lovely Amon Duulish drone rock, worth the price of admission alone. We've really got to admit, that despite their prolific output, Kawabata & Co. rarely disappoint, and this is yet another quite good Acid Mothers Temple release!
Note for serious AMT otaku: there's an unlisted bonus track that we think is the first studio version of their crazy vocal bit "God Bless Acid Mothers Temple", while the disc's very first track features a guest solo from Hiroshi Narazaki (former guitarist of Japanese '70s psych legends Les Rallizes DÈnudÈs).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Uh, ok, AMT-heads, bewarned, this is expensive. REALLY freaking expensive. We're not sure why, I mean, it's imported from France (though, it's not like it's made out of wine), and there's eight sides of vinyl here, and it looks great and all, but $73? Then again, try buying this on eBay a few years hence. And, Univers Zen Ou De Zero A Zero is, by our reckoning and others, one of Kawabata & Co.'s best albums. Furthermore, this deluxe vinyl edition comes with a whole additional LP's worth of live (in Europe 2002) material, previously unreleased. We've got three in stock. You do the math and make your purchasing decisions accordingly. And in case you need it, here's our review of the cd version:
France's Fractal label gets into the Acid Mothers Temple game with this eagerly-awaited new album (we're told it's only their sixth studio effort, though we didn't actually count 'em ourselves). Univers Zen Ou De Zero A Zero starts off with some over the top heavy psych wankery (entitled "Electric Love Machine") that might be leftover from their Electric Heavyland sessions, but as with most AMT releases, you never know what's coming next! Track two marks a shift into more mellow pastures, as Cotton Casino's dreamy voice, acoustic instruments, and gentle synth washes make for a nice interlude, before some seriously droned-out howl comes in on the very next track ("Blues Pour Bible Noire") to hammer you for 20 or so minutes. Later in the disc there's another epic 20+ minute track of medieval psych ("Soleil de Cristal et Lune d'Argent") with Cotton singing/chanting over some lovely Amon Duulish drone rock, worth the price of admission alone. We've really got to admit, that despite their prolific output, Kawabata & Co. rarely disappoint, and this is yet another quite good Acid Mothers Temple release!
Note for serious AMT otaku: there's an unlisted bonus track that we think is the first studio version of their crazy vocal bit "God Bless Acid Mothers Temple", while the disc's very first track features a guest solo from Hiroshi Narazaki (former guitarist of Japanese '70s psych legends Les Rallizes D�nud�s).
Japanese avant-psychedelic heavy freakout band, a hippy tribe led by Makoto Kawabata. If you like his work in Toho Sara, Musica Transonic, and Mainliner, you shan't be disappointed with this. It starts into a seemingly-endless energy trance-groove ala Boredoms "Super Roots 5," but before it's over your mind will also be blown by all kinds of other kosmische weirdness.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Whew, glad that still works. It's been XXX since the last AMT cd, Journey Into The Cosmic Inferno, after all. We were getting worried. (Though, we did have a dvd from them on the last list...). But never fear, AMT is here, again. Actually, AMT is probably out on tour somewhere in the world, and this new cd is more product for their groaning merch table. Ensconced inside a package boasting swank Seldon Hunt cover artwork, you get three new, long, studio recorded tracks, with (as usual) fairly absurd titles. Try these on for size: "Phantom Utopia Or Suicidal Star Warriors", "Cosmic Soul Death Disco", and "Stargate Of The Hell"!!
When the 22 minute track one starts off, you'll be like, woah, heavy. It's a ploddingly paced, lumbering grey grinding dirge, claustrophobically encumbered with swirling, spaced out FX. Definitely in the AMT tradition, and not far from the SUNNO)))-like heaviness of their Recurring Dream & Apocalypse Of Darkness album earlier this year. The second track, however, while equally awash in FX, and just as amped in the guitar dep't, is more of a rocker, throbbing (and babbling, there's vox on this one) a bit like Circle, on their way down the rabbit hole. Kawabata's acid rock guitar dances (or does battle) for the duration with the synthy zips and zaps swooping about, it's another long (29 minute), loud trip indeed.
After all this glorious sprawling psychedelic mayhem, what do we get for a coda? A concentrated dose of the same! The third and final track is a mere 5 minutes but crams in even more frantic FX and acidic guitar squiggle, before the final 30 seconds or so reminds us what bliss a simple vibrating hiss can be, as it fades out and leaves the listener waiting for their next transmission. This one, though, is good for many more spins as well, in fact it's practically spinning by itself even when not in the cd player due to all the cosmic chaos contained within it.
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Of sorts... for, despite the name, this is not exactly the same Acid Mothers Temple by whom you already have a dozen albums. AMT & The Pink Ladies Blues, unlike AMT & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. or AMT & The Cosmic Inferno, doesn't feature Kawabata Makoto! Yet this is one of the best AMT releases we've heard in a while (and it's not like we didn't like Starless & Bible Black or Iao Chant From The Cosmic Inferno, either). AMT & The Pink Ladies Blues is a trio consisting of guitarist Magic Aum Gigi (whose solo LP MMMM we also have in stock, though it's not been reviewed on our site yet), drummer Mai Mai, and guitarist Tsuchy, presumably all members of the extended Acid Mothers Temple communal family.
AMT always can be counted on to indulge in an orgy of FX-overloaded heavy guitar jamming when desired, and THIS Acid Mothers Temple, even without the presence of Kawabata, definitely live up to that reputation! A goodly part of this is primitive, fucked up, bluesy, choppy, podding clangor, heavy and damaged like they're trying to outdo krautrock obscurities Zippo Zetterlink in that dep't. Opening track, the 19 minute "Sandoza Death Blues" sets the tone: utterly raw geetar/drums/electronics (Magic Aum Gigi and Mai Mai being both credited with thermin) riff-stomp, with weird drop outs and/or edits (??). Bearing a dedication to the late great Link Wray, this album knows how to "Rumble"! But they have their blissful space-out side too...
Aside from two brief interludes of ambience and effects, the tracks on this 72 minute album are all lengthy jams. The longest at over 28 minutes is called "Freaks Your Mind & Your LSD Piss Will Follow". Geez, those psychedelic punsters! Ain't that a VERY Acid Mothers Temple title, though? They liked it so much they chant it a bunch, which while unfortunate fails to detract from the enjoyable Brainticket-style bad trip they conjured with this track.
We kinda wish that they hadn't included "Acid Mothers Temple" in the band name, which could cause this to be overlooked amidst past, present and future massive AMT output. This supreme lysergically inspired rock dementia deserves its own designation! Though it also fits in perfectly with the AMT aesthetic that's for sure.
Before you go, geez ANOTHER Acid Mothers Temple album alreddy?? remember that this AMT isn't that AMT. Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues is a totally different band, in fact, one of the members of this trio isn't even Japanese, he's the French guy who runs Fractal. But that doesn't stop him (or them) from sounding like they should all be wearing big Makoto Kawabata beards! Their music's definitely THAT hairy. This second album of theirs, The Soul Of A Mountain Wolf, is all about heavy and droning riffage. It's like "Rumble" on LSD. All-instrumental, nothin' but far-out guitar wailin' action, supported by pounding drums and bass. Any AMT fan, of any AMT, is gonna be pleased. One thing though, this isn't that long of a cd. "Sandoza Death Blues" from their debut was almost as long as this whole disc, which is just under 20 minutes total. Hmmm. But it's good stuff, if blown-out, acid-fried bluesy psych geetar stomp is your thing!! Ain't it??
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
That *Acid Mothers Temple Alert!* *Acid Mothers Temple Alert!* *Acid Mothers Temple Alert!* emergency warning alarm has been going off pretty much continually here at Aquarius over the past couple weeks, driving us all batty. We thought it must be broken or something but no, there's just been THREE more releases from those hairy Japanese hippies known as AMT plus another Kawabata collaboration (w/ Daevid Allen of Gong). So let's assess the threat.
Collector-types might want to pick up this one first, as it's a limited-to-600 copies vinyl only release, probably not long for this world. Recorded live at an Austin radio station in collaboration with Texas psych-minimalists Ultrasound, this AMT record is definitely on the wonderfully spacey side. Ultrasound lay the foundation, a dark and droning Stars Of The Lid-like rumble, throbbing and pulsing, while AMT show great restraint, weaving a sweet tapestry of melancholy, sun-dappled, gentle lilting gypsy folk. Things get a little more intense on the b-side as both groups' sounds coalesce into a propulsive slab of murky neo-Krautrock.
Clear 10" vinyl, with no labels, packaged in "invisible" 100 percent inkless sleeves (with dry letterpressed transparent film covers).
Split single from two AQ faves that by now, if you're a reader of this list you are quite familiar with. You get a burst of fuzzed out, spaced out extraterrestrial Japanese mayhem from AMT ("The Tombstone Phantom Drifter") and a blast of droning, hypnotic krautrock-inspired Finnish ur-rock from Circle ("Riemukaari"). Only a few in stock.
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Heck, Acid Mothers Temple overload! Essence Music of Brazil has brought us not one but TWO Acid Mothers Temple discs this week: the expanded reissue of 41st Century Splendid Man originally released as a picture disc on Andee's tUMULt label, and also this brand new album. Well AMT fans are always ready for more product, aren't they? Better be! 'Cause the cosmic vibes of which Makoto Kawabata and friends are but the earthly vessels for are not waiting for you to pay off those student loans or get that raise... No, they mean to be heard NOW and probably again next week, even if their devotees need to start selling their plasma to keep up with AMT's releases. If you have to choose between paying the rent and picking up another AMT cd like this one, we're confident you'll make the right choice. And if it makes you feel any better, this IS a pretty great AMT album! Great song titles too, and we're not being sarcastic: "Na Na Hey Hey From The Cosmic Inferno", "Nipples In The Dream Woods", and "Golem Rock" are but three of 'em. These Japanese neo-kraut psychedelic voyagers offer up the jams to go with such titles, that's for sure. If AMT's Electric Heavyland is one of your faves, this ought to be right up your acid rock alley.
The disc opens with the wild, wah-wahed guitar excess of "Ecstasy In Hell" and really never lets up, pounding on through the nearly 19-minute "Nipples...", spacey fx in full effect. A darkly droned-out detour is however taken on the next 17 minute track, "Omen Amen", kind of a ceremonial-sounding, folky trance ritual, followed for the next 13 minutes by the riff-repetition of "Dark Side Of The Apocalypse", sounding something like a hypothetical Hawkwind / Les Rallizes Denudes summit. That brings us to "Golem Rock", a garagey number that cranks up the FUZZ big time. And then "Na Na Hey Hey..." provides a surprisingly quiet, spaced-out, and sorta silly coda to the whole thing, with electronically effected voices chanting you know what...
And this gets extra bonus points for the awesome packaging, the miniature LP-styled gatefold sleeve opening up to reveal a rad pop-up book style gimmick inside!
Japan's Acid Mothers Temple posse is laying their cards on the table with this one. With that title, which references both King Crimson and Black Sabbath, and the album cover, which sees AMT leader Kawabata Makoto standing in for the mysterious woman on the front of the first Black Sabbath album, they're paying tribute to two bands they love and also raising our expectations to perhaps unattainable levels, 'cause we love those bands too. I mean, are they REALLY gonna do the spirit of the Sabs and KC justice on this disc? Well being AMT I guess we shouldn't take them all that seriously. And no, they don't cover either band here or even end up sounding much like them. But this IS a pretty darn heavy and freaked out AMT album (moreso than usual, that is!). Kinda along the lines of their Electric Heavyland opus released a few years back on the same label, Starless And Bible Black Sabbath is a monster jam of epic, amped-up proportions that seems more like a tribute to heavy Hawkwind or maybe Monster Magnet than the two bands alluded to by the title. And that's fine by us! Kawabata isn't a riffmeister like Tony Iommi anyway, nor do his albums usually attain the level of compositional complexity for which King Crimson were noted. But both Sabbath and Crimson had their improvisational sides as well (better known in KC's case but definitely a big part of early Sabbath too) and that's perhaps what's inspiring the always jam-ready AMT here! You get two tracks, "Starless And Bible Black Sabbath" being a mammoth, mostly instrumental 34 and a half minute workout full of plodding, heavy riffage and gibbering gobs of spaced out FX. Again, although one bit reminds us of Sabbath's "Children Of The Grave", this could just as easily be a tribute to Hawkwind or Guru Guru or even Soundgarden (isn't that the "Outshined" riff in there?), but whatever, it's the sort of cosmic, crushing chaos which we love from Kawabata and Co., and would be the perfect AMT track to attract fans of bands like Electric Wizard and Ufomammut. Though exhausting enough by itself, they don't stop with that, as a second, six minute track -- the sloppy, speedy, frenzied "Woman From A Hell" -- finishes off the album like the Pink Fairies in a race with the devil. Dunno, even though we had our doubts 'cause of the cheekiness of the title/cover, this might just be our favorite AMT release in a while!
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
Volume 2, "Psychedelic Warlords", features Acid Mothers Temple, who are an obvious choice to pay homage to a band who was doing the AMT thing 30 years ago, and in true AMT fashion, Kawabata and company go for it, covering "Brainstorm" although it's difficult to tell, as it's buried under sheets of wild freaked out psych guitar and blown out space rock effects EVERYWHERE. It really doesn't sound all that different from any number of other AMT jams, but that's basically because every AMT jam is a tribute to Hawkwind, isn't it?
AMT are matched up with NYC's White Hills, who ditch much of their usual spaceiness for something a bit harder, tackling "Be Yourself" with crunchy chugging guitars, pounding drums, wild tangles of distortion drenched leads over the top, the band not so much covering the original, as transforming it into an endless psychedelic hard rock loop, the band churning and grinding out a steady stream of psychedelia over that endless main riff, before drifting off into a cloud of glittering soft psych shimmer.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!
*Acid Mothers Temple alert*
*Acid Mothers Temple alert*
*Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Ok, so when are they gonna build a pipeline, or start a satellite radio station, or take over every page on MySpace, so they can deliver their soundz 24-7, and we can mainline AMT from the source all day every day?? Instead the psychedelic music of the Acid Mothers is doled out (ever so quite often!) in album-length chunks. Here's the latest installment from the hardest working hippies in Japan. Three tracks are offered up here, "Eleking The Clay" (14:00), "Sorcerer's Stone Of The Magi" (3:52), and "Vishnu And The Magic Elixir" (25:34). The first is a vibratory, Middle Eastern tinged trance-rocker, it's relentlessly awesome, definitely a highlight of recent AMT action. The relatively brief second track is more of an acoustic-ethnic-folky affair, quite lovely. And then the big track three is a drug-gobbling jam, full of quacking, quaking chaos, like Guru Guru gone totally mental, Kawabata's guitar soloing wildly towards the gloriously noisy everything-louder-than-everything else ending. All of three tracks here are of course liberally drenched in enough spacey FX for ten Hawkwind records. Familiar territory for AMT fans for sure, and as always a nice place to be!
The cd format is digipacked, while the limited edition lp version is resplendent on pink vinyl!
It's an ***Acid Mothers Temple alert*** and also a ***Ruins alert*** with this one. Japanese underground music devotees, look alive! The clumsily-named Acid Mothers Temple SWR unit is a power trio consisting of drummer Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, etc.), guitarist Makoto Kawabata (AMT, etc.), and bassist Atsushi Tsuyama (AMT, etc.). They've released one album under this moniker previously (and several together under other names -- this is the same lineup as Seikazoku). And as before, this time around they've created a crazed, semi-improvised rock tribute to three of their favorite things: Stones, Women, and Records (SWR)!! The cheesecake cover photo sorta says it all. Who else would pose a woman in a bikini on a rock holding a record?
Anyway, there's 18 confusional tracks here ranging from spastic jazz noodlings to country-pop parodies to plenty of out-n-out freek-rock, all of it played with hella chops and tongues, we think, planted firmly in cheek (which doesn't stop them from accomplishing all sorts of insane vocals). They jump from one musical idea to the next without warning, somehow managing to cram outbursts of heaviness, interludes of genuine beauty, Black Sabbath quotes, and even kazoos all onto this same perverse prog platter! The song titles are incomprehensible in-jokes ("Very Very Very Jazz - deer cries with 'KAGYEEYO' in the breeding season", "Fairy music of foolish sushi bar - country singer NARENA BAYSTAR", "Ahla Hassanbeck Lamborghini rock"...????) and these guys are as silly as they are psychedelic, but AMTSWR don't mess around at messing around, even the most humorless avant-listener (of a psych bent) should walk away impressed at this music. Think Acid Mothers Temple meets old Omoide Hatoba and Boredoms... Yeah. "Forever stones, Forever women, Forever records"!
The Osaka-based "ultra lunatic girl duo" who stepped in for Cotton Casino on the recent Acid Mothers Temple disc Minstrel In The Galaxy now have their own release on the AMT imprint. Afrirampo consist of Oni (vocals, guitar) and Pikacyu (vocals, drums) but it seems like there's waaay more people that just the two of them in the band. Maybe that's 'cause of all the crazy different kinds of vocals that spill out over everything here -- screaming, cookie monster grunts, shouted group chants, and chipmunk baby babble. All of which goes great with the band's music: totally energetic, catchy, bouncy, noisy, freaky stuff. If you're a musical Japanophile, you'll definitely hear a lot of early Boredoms / UFO Or Die / Melt Banana in this here album! Afrirampo's got the stomping spastic grooves, psychedelic sci-fi effects, chaotic catchiness, ethno-percussion, surfy rock n' roll licks...all that good stuff we love about old Boredoms. And the bizarro-nonsense level likewise seems pretty high. The disc ends with "Kunoichi", a throbbing 16 minute epic that builds from spaced-out insane asylum improv to crushing cosmic churn. Freakin' great. Just about what we'd expect from a band who not only hang with AMT, but also have jammed with Sonic Youth, Munehiro Narita of High Rise, Keiji Haino of Fushitsusha, and also pygmies in an African village where the duo spent several months last summer, or so we're told! Apparently this is an enhanced (with unreleased tracks and cd-rom materials) remastered reissue of what was once a cd-r release, recorded at some point early in the duo's career, which would be circa 2002. So we'll now definitely have to try and get a hold of more by this band!
At last, an Afrirampo release that's not so hard to obtain, as the duo makes their domestic US debut on John Zorn's Tzadik label. John Zorn being the guy that first clued a lot of us in to the Boredoms, coincidentally enough. Well, whether deliberately or not, it would seem that the two girls from Osaka, Japan known as Afrirampo are channelling the chaos and confusion of early early Boredoms (who also hail from Osaka). If you miss the noisiness of the Boredoms circa Soul Discharge, you might have a nice flashback from this. There's lots of screaming and singing (the wild, wide variety of their vocals is one of Afrirampo's trademarks, along with the arty costumes that feature in their live presentations) and distorted guitar and crazed percussion and boundless energy here. Lots and lots of all that. It's all very dramatic and weird and doubtless annoying to some in the same way the Boredoms once were (some of US here at AQ actually can't stand to hear this when it's being played in the store). The very first track will let you know if you're up to their test or not: almost 12 minutes that range from raging Bore-punk to vocal baby babble to mean metal guitar riffage. If you dig that, the rest of the record will be right up your alley. And anyone who is already a fan won't be disappointed with this Tzadik disc either.
Squeaking, scraping scraps of violin improv turned into musique concrete via magnetic tape and razorblade -- that's the specialty of Japan's Hideaki Shimada, aka Agencement. This disc contains two long, low-key, slowly unravelling tracks, one from '93 and the
"Lunatic avant-free-rock, honed in guerrilla street performance" we're told. Hmm, we know the streets of Tokyo are crowded, but we bet Ahousen cleared the block they were rockin'. Of course, had we been there to see 'em, we'd have stayed put in the street, digging Ahousen big time. This is some serious psychedelic guitar grit, drum tumble, distorto-bass trudge, avant-sax blat, and angsty-screamy vocal burble, from a Japanese band we first heard on PSF's Tokyo Flashback vol. 6 comp. The guitarist, Katsu, played in a band called Lizard back in the '70s, the drummer is Tail from Suishou No Fune. The quartet is rounded out by Suu on sax and vocals, and Akira on bass. Dunno what other bands they may be from, but being part of Ahousen seems cool enuff! Wild and wooly but also sometimes achingly melodic and melancholic, Ahousen (aka Ship Of Fools in English) is part free jazz, part psych rock, and part Japanese folk. It's like Albert Ayler meets Blue Cheer. Or Musica Transonic with sax and a hint of Enka.
Beginning auspiciously enough with the energetic onslaught of "All Creatures", Ahousen's self-titled debut consists of four tracks in total, ranging in length from 7 minutes to an epic 28 ("Ophelia", which occupies the 2nd half of the album, certainly is a dramatic performance, compelling throughout, moving from moments of delicate frolic to heavy duty freakdom). Speaking of drama, even in the album's less fierce, more folky moments (like on the relatively lovely "A Leaf"), Suu's nervous breakdown, primal scream vocals up the emotional ante on everything else, his extreme outbursts being a major element of Ahousen's sound, and impact. Compared to other Tokyo Flashback style acts we like from the Tokyo psych scene, such as LSD-march and Up-Tight, these guys somehow sound more '70s underground, and more OUT there - in part due to the free jazz factor, in part due to those vocals... Radical. Fans of Fushitsusha and Kaoru Abe now have a dream date. And let's not limit ourselves merely to Japanese references, anyone into intense underground noisemaking from like likes of, I dunno, Raccoo-oo-oon, might want to sail into the maelstrom with this Ship Of Fools too. Pretty fantastic.
A couple of years ago Japan's Ai Aso served up an absolute dreamcake of an album titled Lavender, then last month she teamed up with Wata of Boris for an amazing book and 7" set. Ai's delights keep on coming with this, her latest full length. Her cooing Japanese waif vocals float like fallen blossoms atop a blurred watercolor stream of effected guitar and steady programmed Casio-esque rhythms. Taking a dip in this Chamomile Pool will surely have the same calming effect as the tea of the same name. We imagine it'd even make a great substitution for traditional baby lullaby fare. This will definitely soothe children of all ages, but the overall serenely elegant tone ensures its adult appeal too. Not an abrasive tone in sight, everything is smooth, soft and so very enchanting. Recommended.
