Acid Mothers Temple

Without a doubt one of the most prolific and eccentric acts of the past decade, Kawabata Makoto's Acid Mothers Temple have flooded the underground music scene with countless psychedelic freakouts (five or six releases a year are more rule than exception). In the meantime, they somehow find enough time to impress audiences around the world with their famed live shows as well. Centered around Kawabata, this multifarious "soul collective", comprised of around thirty members, is active under many guises, their most famous one, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (standing for Underground Freak Out), being just one of their numerous incarnations. Drawing inspiration from 60's psychedelia, Krautrock, 70's hard rock and trippy progressive acts like Daevid Allen's Gong (alluding to historic underground acts in practically each of their song titles), the AMT have coined a unique synthesis of all of these styles over the years, and their oeuvre has become a veritable encyclopedia of underground rock music.

Title:

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.

Label:

PSF

Release date:

1997

Recording date:

June 1996-April 1997

Tracklist:

1. Acid Mothers Prayer 0:28

2. Speed Guru 18:09

3. From the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. I 2:08

4. The Top Head Pixies 1:06

5. Zen Feedbacker 2:31

6. Coloradoughnut 2:52

7. From the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. II 2:57

8. Amphetamine a Go Go 5:13

9. Pink Lady Lemonade 8:22

10. Satori LSD 6:09

11. Hawaiian Brownie 1:14

12. Acid Mothers Temple for All! 1:58

They debuted with Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (PSF, 1997 [recorded June 1996-April 1997]), whose centerpiece is the 18-minute "Speed Guru", the ultimate manifesto of their psychedelic madness. It is a jaw-dropping rollercoaster at light speed featuring ceaseless, frantic drumming, deafening synth noises and a wildly distorted howling guitar. "Amphetamine A Go Go" starts as a very loud blues-rocker, featuring a wild guitar solo, but the guitar and drums end up being completely overpowered by Higashi Hiroshi's highly distorted synthesizers and other assorted electronic mayhem. "Pink Lady Lemonade", which would become one of their trademark songs (sometimes stretched to over an hour during live shows, but featured here in a compact 8-minute version), is instead a very calm and mellow track, a welcome little peace and quiet amid the deluge of sound. "Satori LSD" ups the ante on the term "loud", employing ridiculous amounts of distortion, quite comically juxtaposed to the "swinging" rhythm that the band is playing underneath the thick cloud of noise. Many of the shorter tracks on the album (only four of twelve exceed the 3-minute mark) are trippy recitals accompanied by strange psychedelic noises. The closing "Acid Mothers Temple For All!" is (quite aptly, one would almost say) two minutes of uncomfortable, piercing high-frequency noise.

7.3/10

Title:

Pataphisical Freak Out MU!!

Label: PSF

Release date: 1999

Recording date:

September 1998-January 1999

Tracklist:

1. Cosmic Audrey / Acid Takion 11:31 2. White Summer of Love / Third Eye of the Whole World 5:52 3. Golden Bat Blues Dead / Mr. Hardy Guidey Man / Magic Aum LSD / Astrological Overdrive 16:12 4. Right About Rainbow I / You're My Only Super Sunshine / Right About Rainbow II 8:49 5. Blue Velvet Blues 25:41

Their second album, Pataphisical Freak Out MU!!, opens with three minutes of a French female voice on "Cosmic Audrey", after which "Acid Takion" takes the listener on a wild 9-minute ride of Hendrix-ian guitar acrobatics. "White Summer of Love" is a much gentler piece of acoustic, folkish psychedelia, followed by "Third Eye of the Whole World", probably one of the most straightforward poppy songs in their entire repertoire. "Golden Bat Blues Dead" is instead a very slow blues featuring dissonant, rather aimless guitar rambling by Kawabata, followed by the brief hurdy-gurdy song "Mr. Hardy Guidey Man", the short, obligatory voice/noise-piece "Magic Aum LSD", and the offbeat acid-pop of "Astrological Overdrive" (all packed into a single track). Bookended by the brief acoustic recitals of "Right About Rainbow I & II", the 7-minute "You're My Only Super Sunshine" is a very noisy guitar workout, and probably the piece that comes closest to reviving the full-on mayhem of the debut's heaviest moments. The closing 25-minute "Blue Velvet Blues" is a tormented, nocturnal blues that, without the agonizing distorted guitar wails, would have probably fit neatly on a Bohren & Der Club of Gore album.

6.9/10

Title:

Troubadours from Another Heavenly World

Label: PSF

Release date: 2000

Recording date:

December 1999-April 2000

Tracklist:

1. Heroin Heroine's Heritage 20:59 2. She Is a Rainbow in Curved Air 5:46 3. Acid Heart Mother 32:27

The psychedelic storm had subsided even further on Troubadours from Another Heavenly World, giving way to the slow, dilated acid-rock on display in the 21-minute "Heroin Heroine's Heritage", boasting gently psychedelic guitar strumming reminiscent of Hash Jar Tempo's most subdued jams. "She is a Rainbow in Curved Air" is a tender hymn for acoustic guitar, droning violin and female vocals. The 32-minute "Acid Heart Mother" is another trippy excursion, this time featuring a more enunciated rhythm section. The piece ebbs and flows, with the guitar moving back and forth from laid-back reverberating twang to noisy distorted wailing. It ends uncharacteristically in an apocalyptic 7-minute crescendo of utter chaos.

6.6/10

Title: La Nòvia

Label: Eclipse

Release date: 2000

Recording date: May 2000

Tracklist: 1. La Nòvia 40:40

The single, 41-minute track of La Nòvia (Eclipse, 2000 [recorded May 2000]), based on a traditional Occitan folk song (the title translates as "The Bride"), opens with five minutes of buddhist chanting, before the guitar takes the stage and soon the epic leitmotiv is sounded for the first time. After the jam gathers momentum it is propelled by traditional percussion, rhythm guitar, bouzouki, violin, and assorted electronic psychedelia, all in perfect synergy, and to a truly hypnotic effect. About thirteen minutes into the piece, there is a moment of relative calm, after which the jam continues, this time with more distorted guitars, but with the same ceaseless, hypnotic rhythm. After twenty minutes, the piece is briefly transformed into a gentle lullaby for acoustic guitar, flute, and female vocals, before electric instruments and percussion reinstate the theme once again, this time building itself up in a mesmerizing crescendo, until after twenty-eight minutes the piece is slowly derailed by off-beat drumming, random guitar notes, and a fluttering flute. These are no doubt the strangest minutes of the piece, close to a free-form freakout, until the majestic theme is brought back once more for three more minutes of culminating hypnotic bliss, after which a gentle acoustic guitar coda closes the piece on a melancholy note. [The CD-reissue contains two more tracks, the short, unusually pretty "Bois-Tu de la Bière?" and the 17-minute "Bon Voyage au LSD", a spaced-out track that goes through seven minutes of cosmic ambience before it starts to pick up speed, ending in a loud and powerful crescendo.]

8.5/10

A considerably shortened 12-minute live version of "La Nòvia", recorded in Dublin 2007, is available below.

Title:

New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple

Label: Squealer

Release date: 2001

Recording date: ?

Tracklist:

1. Psycho Buddha 21:27 2. Space Age Ballad 4:00 3. You're Still Now Near Me Everytime 10:44 4. Universe of Romance 5:21 5. Occie Lady 8:31 6. Mellow Hollow Love 4:39 7. What Do I Want to Know (Like Heavenly Kisses Part II) 15:06

New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple (Squealer, 2001 [recorded ?]), their fourth album, immediately blasts off into the ferocious 21-minute bacchanal of "Psycho Buddha", a breathless, hyperkinetic rave-up of hard-hitting drums, dizzying electronic noises, and instrumental chaos. The three shortest pieces on the album (all lasting 4-5 minutes) are moody collages of spaced-out vocals, assorted noises, and harmonium ("Space Age Ballad"), bouzouki ("Universe of Romance"), and analog synths ("Mellow Hollow Love"). The 11-minute "You're Still Now Near Me Everytime" draws back to the languid acid-rock style employed on Troubadours. "Occie Lady" is instead a heavily distorted piece of smudgy space-rock with cosmic sound effects, and in the fifteen minutes of "What Do I Want to Know (Like Heavenly Kisses Part II)" the band concocts an imposing droning symphony of sorts, that after eight minutes finds its peace in a majestic, blissful ambience. The album is a stylistic hodgepodge; the two longest tracks are great contributions to their repertoire.

6.7/10

Title:

Absolutely Freak Out "Zap Your Mind!"

Label: Static Caravan

Release date: February 2001

Recording date:

May-July 2000

Tracklist:

1. Supernatural Infinite Space / Waikiki Easy Meat 19:09 2. Grapefruit March / Virgin U.F.O. / Let's Have A Ball / Pagan Nova 20:19 3. The Incipient Light Of The Echoes 12:15 4. Magic Aum Rock / Mercurical Megatronic Meninx 7:39 5. The Kiss That Took A Trip / Magic Aum Rock Again / Love Is Overborne / Fly High 19:25

The double album Absolutely Freak Out "Zap Your Mind!" starts with the 14-minute drone-fest of "Supernal Infinite Space", a glorious mash-up of Faust's "Krautrock" and LaMonte Young's droning symphonies. The track flows fluently into the demented space-jazz of "Waikiki Easy Meat". "Grapefluit March" is an utterly insane psychedelic march song that even Daevid Allen could not have concocted; and "Let's Have a Ball" is its wild, screeching counterpart, preceded by the female vocal recital of "Virgin U.F.O.". The 10-minute "Pagan Nova" boasts distant meandering guitar lines over the usual psychedelic sound effects, the track becoming louder and more distorted each minute, until the deafening ending that sounds somewhat like a runaway concrete saw. "The Incipient Light of the Echoes" is their version of Steve Reich's and Terry Riley's minimalism. "Magic Aum Rock" quotes the Trashmen's masterpiece "Surfin' Bird" before launching into a full-on assault of very loud space-rock. "Mercurial Megatronic Meminx" is one of their many voice/noise-collages, as is the 6-minute "The Kiss That Took a Trip", though this time one of the Gong-variety. The 4-minute "Love is Overborne" slowly floods a lonely mellow guitar with a multitude of electronic effects. The piece leads fluently into the gentle 8-minute closer "Fly High", an eastern-tinged lullaby with a droning tambura accompanying Cotton Casino's vocals. [The CD-reissue adds forty-five minutes of extra tracks, including the 16-minute "Stone Stoner" and the 24-minute triptych "Children Of The Drab/Surfin' Paris-Texas/Virgin U.F.O. Feed Back"].

6.4/10

Title:

41st Century Splendid Man

Label: tUMULt

Release date: 2002

Recording date:

1997-8

Tracklist:

1. 41st Century Splendid Man 14:13 2. The Creation of the Human Race / Genesis of Humanity (Amoebea - Volcanoes - Dinosaurs - Humanity - Civilization - War - Extinction - Robots) 8:57 3. Dalai Gama 4:25

The mini-album 41st Century Splendid Man, recorded several years before its release in 2002, boasts the eerie 14-minute title track, a piece of ghostly ambience featuring metallic percussion and employing various exotic instruments (Tibetan trumpet, sitar, sarangi, etc.) outside of their usual musical surroundings. The 9-minute "The Creation of the Human Race" is a confused slab of jazz-rock culminating in a chaotic free-form freakout. On the brief "Dalai Gama", the guitar impersonates animal shrieks before the piece closes in a cloud of cosmic ambience. This album is one of their most commanding, avantgardist works. It is impressive to see Kawabata adopt new genres successfully, continually expanding the project's vast stylistic universe.

6.5/10

Title:

Univers Zen ou de Zéro à Zéro

Label: Fractal

Release date: 2002

Recording date: ?

Tracklist:

1. Electric Love Machine 10:34 2. Ange Mécanique de Saturne 10:31 3. Blues Pour Bible Noire 21:40 4. Trinité Orphique 2:31 5. Soleil de Cristal et D'argent 22:26 6. God Bless AMT 3:43

Univers Zen ou de Zéro à Zéro is only their sixth official album (The others being the three PSF releases, New Geocentric World and Absolutely Freak Out), even though by this time the project already had some twenty releases to their name (all others considered by Kawabata to be "special concept releases"). It is inaugurated by "Electric Love Machine", one of their trademark ferocious space-rock excursions in the best Hawkwind tradition. The 10-minute "Ange Mécanique de Saturne" is a gorgeous lullaby initially sung by Cotton Casino's childlike soprano, but ending in seven minutes of mesmerizing acoustic guitar playing and gentle spacy electronic noises. The real treats however, are the two 22-minute juggernauts: "Blues Pour Bible Noire" and

"Soleil de Cristal et Lune d'Argent". The former

is a titanic slow-moving nocturnal blues dominated by two heavily distorted guitars on an anguished, hopeless odyssey for redemption. The latter starts like a medieval litany, with Cotton Casino's stately vocals intoning a ritualistic invocation, until after six minutes the track is caught in a mesmerizing 8-minute instrumental crescendo. After the smoke clears all that is left is an ominous void of bass, drums, and sparse noises until the medieval theme returns, this time with more instrumental verve. The album closes with the 4-minute a cappella freakout of "God Bless AMT", sounding like an insane version of Meredith Monk's voice experiments. Undoubtedly one of their greatest achievements, this album is an impeccable survey of AMT's encyclopedic psychedelic madness.

7.5/10

The 3CD box set Do Whatever You Want, Don't Do Whatever You Don't Want (Earworm, 2002) contains one of their greatest jams, an hour-long studio version of their classic "Pink Lady Lemonade". A somewhat shorter 31-minute live version, recorded in Dublin, 2007 is available below.

Title: Electric Heavyland

Label: Alien8

Release date:

October 6th 2002

Recording date:

May 2002

Tracklist:

1. Atomic Rotary Grinding God

/ Quicksilver Machine Head

15:43 2. Loved and Confused 17:02 3. Phantom of Galactic Magnum 18:58

Electric Heavyland, their seventh official album (though it was recorded even before their fifth; 2002 was a very productive year for the band), is aptly titled, for it contains three of the band's heaviest, most powerful excursions, all clocking in between 15-20 minutes. The outrageously loud jams by Mainliner (a band which, not surprisingly, features Kawabata too) are perhaps the closest points of reference here. They really make a noisy mess of things in the opener "Atomic Rotary Grinding God/Quicksilver Machine Head", a delirious, fast-paced maelstrom of ugly noise that after 8 minutes briefly turns into an eerie female voice collage in the vein of Tim Buckley's "Starsailor", before the mayhem continues, and soon a frantic guitar solo towers over it. "Loved and Confused" opens with one of those ultra-heavy, ultra-distorted panzer blues-riffs that defined the Mainliner-sound, before shifting into overdrive, being ripped apart by pummeling drums, agonizing guitar shrieks, and outrageous sound effects. The album is crowned by the uncontrolled bacchanal of "Phantom of Galactic Magnum", a piece overloaded with the most far-out synths and noises, rapidly spinning out of control into a delirious frenzy of deafening noise. There is no doubt that this is their most catastrophic, apocalyptic album yet, likely to leave even the most experienced listeners in a state of bewilderment.

8.0/10

Title:

Iao Chant from the Cosmic Inferno

Label: Ace Fu

Release date:

September 20th 2005

Recording date:

March-May 2005

Tracklist: 1.

OM Riff from the Cosmic Inferno 51:25

Iao Chant from the Cosmic Inferno, credited to Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno, contains only a single track, the colossal 51-minute "OM Riff from the Cosmic Inferno". The opening of the track sounds an awful lot like an upbeat version of Flying Teapot-era Gong (no wonder the liner notes give special thanks to Daevid Allen); a brilliant, hallucinogenic flight of imagination. As the quirky vocals subside, the turbulent jam stretches on with spaced-out synthesizers, incessant drumming, and a wonderfully meandering guitar. After about nineteen minutes the track moves into an eerie, surreal ambience, only to be resurrected five minutes later into a slow-moving blues, Kawabata's anguished guitar howling like a wounded animal. After half an hour, the track picks up speed again until it reaches the same locomotive speed of the opening theme. Four minutes later the track shifts gears once more when the band intones a buddhist chant before bringing back the Gong-progression, this time stretched out to an amazing 15-minute space jam (featuring terrific guitar work by Kawabata) which steadily spins out of control in the last five minutes until it finally burns out.

7.5/10

Title:

Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo

Label: Ace Fu

Release date:

June 19th 2007

Recording date:

December 2006-January 2007

Tracklist: 1.

Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo 65:15

The 65-minute colossus of Nam Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo (Ace Fu, June 19th 2007 [recorded December 2006-January 2007]) is centered around the ancient Buddhist chant of the title. Gongs introduce the chant, sung in a monotonous trance-inducing register and with a monotonous trance-inducing rhythm for ten minutes. Then an acoustic guitar intones a mildly ominous theme, vaguely reminiscent of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, soon accompanied by Kawabata's hurdy-gurdy and glockenspiel, while the band members join in all kinds of weird vocals, barking and bawling, groaning and growling, whimpering and weeping. After seventeen minutes, the stately procession of the chant recovers, but this time the guitar is the protagonist, soloing for over eight minutes until the track shifts gears into a fast-paced ritual dance of sorts. After thirty-six minutes, the acoustic guitar returns, its gentle strumming complementing a new, more melodic chant, growing ever more psychedelic and offbeat, ten minutes later the ritual procession is once more reinstated, followed again by the acoustic guitar/hurdy-gurdy/glockenspiel theme until a delirious free-jazz frenzy appears from out of nowhere, leaving behind a cosmic void of electronic noises. To make sure we do not take them too seriously (or think that they might take themselves too seriously) the last minute is taken up by a satirical a cappella version of the chant ("La la la la la la la la, nam myo ho ren ge kyo").

6.9/10

Going through AMT's vast discography, one can't help but wonder about the masterpieces that they could have made using a less prolific recording ethos, more carefully separating the wheat from the chaff. On the other hand, perhaps it is just this immoderate, spontaneous attitude that made so many of their undertakings a success. Either way, it is amazing to see how many terrific albums they have still been able to pull off.

Best albums:

1. La Nòvia 8.5/10

2. Electric Heavyland 8.0/10

3. Univers Zen ou de Zéro à Zéro 7.5/10

3. Iao Chant from the Cosmic Inferno 7.5/10

5. Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. 7.3/10

Reactions are always very welcome!