Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - New Geocentric World of the Acid Mothers Temple
(Squealer)
I would venture to say that the lion's share of extremity in virtually every facet of music festers and spews forth from the fertile caverns of the Japanese underground. Upon learning that West Japan's Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. subtitle themselves as "A Freak-Out Group For the 21st Century," the fantastic track record of fully freaked independent rock/noise/psychedelia/anything from the Land of the Rising Sun precludes that you must allot them the benefit of the doubt, even before taking the Acid Test for yourself. Venturing into the elaborate funhouse of the Acid Mothers Temple, the walls melt, the colors explode, all aspects of reality are gloriously exaggerated... and the dizzying music which erupts in rapturous red-hot lava flows is absolutely astounding.
Toting their most recent edition in an already prolific and steadily ongoing supersonic odyssey, New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple is Acid Mothers Temple's first proper US domestic CD release. Formed in 1996 Kawabata Makoto (Mainliner, Toho Sara) as a communal collective of kindred spirits, the whole modus operandi of Acid Mothers Temple's elaborate vision is to merge the disparate worlds of heavy psyche rock, a la Blue Cheer, Gong, and Hawkwind, with the electronic compositional aesthetic of Stockhausen or Terry Riley minimalism. A motley array of Kawabata solo dronescapes and Acid Mothers Temple Soul Collective splinter groups keeps you guessing (and for this writer, salivating), with names like Floating Flower, Father Moo & The Black Sheep, and Nishinihon. With seven albums in Acid Mothers Temple's arsenal to date, each release differs remarkably from the other, keeping the prolific nature of the band devoid of any redundancy. Aiming squarely for the outer reaches of the cosmos, each shudder from Acid Mothers Temple makes it into orbit every time. New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple, while not the band's most unique trough of cosmic slop (save that distinction for Absolutely Freak-Out (Zap Your Mind) on Resonant/Static Caravaan and La Novia on Eclipse/Swordfish), it is perhaps their most well-rounded and representational offering for the otherwise uninitiated, and certainly succeeds in serving up a potent dosage of audio microdot.
Unleashing a dense, fire-breathing paisley demon, "Psycho Buddha" throttles you from the get-go. The 21 minute leadoff tune curdles under a deep overdriven swirl of sound, engulfed in massive layers of guitars, synths, bagpipes, shrieks, the kitchen sink... a scalding cauldron o' fury! And that's the first half of the tune... roughly into the second half some extreme guitar shrapnel surfaces, hurled from the depths, blistering from every acid lick known to humans, or possibly DMT-drenched alien hippies. This colorfast undertow harkens to the speed freak blast of their debut self-titled album and the overdriven bombast of Mainliner, drenched in every pigment of the rainbow.
After ravaging you from every angle, Acid Mothers Temple spit you out into the floating headspace of "Space Age Ballad," a weightless hallucination in which crystalline spirits beckon from their incense-laced netherworld. Harmonium and keyboards sweeten the tea over muted acoustic guitars. Lava lamp burbling, the hall of mirrors warps into "You're Still Now Near Me Everytime," a lilting hookah hit a la Amon Duul II delivered via the psychedelic soul of AMT Soul Collective nomad Haco. Ghostly vocals, chiming guitar, and oscillating gurgles lay the blueprint for some great wah-fuzz guitar banter from Kawabata.
Drunk on sound, Acid Mothers Temple guide the trip into mutated traditional mountain-folk spheres with "Universe of Romance." Picking up splinters from La Novia, AMT's astounding, extended acid jam interpretation of Octavian folk music, this tune huzzes and billows under a traditional line on acoustic guitar with some mescaline chants soaring through the mix. Thus setting the mood, Kawabata unsheathes his sword and proceeds to behead us all with "Occie Lady," a louder-than-fuck Blue Cheer/MC5 LSD vomit, sending Vincebus Eurptum and Kick Out the Jams through the cheese grater once and for all, electronic flourishes in tow. Cutting out to some reverbed Jandek-on-piano noodlings, Acid Mothers Temple mercifully come down from the trip in fractured fashion. "Mellow Hollow Love" fluffs up the throw pillow for the impending burnout. Quietly stroking the acoustic guitar, this psyche-folk nugget is a gilded treasure, gleaming as celestial vocals croon under bleeping synthesizer emissions. Suspended in afterburn is the incredible closer "What Do I Want To Know (Like Heavenly Kisses Part 2)", a minimalist comet's tail streaking across the mind, blazing a trail into inner transcendence. This is a droning window unto higher consciousness, a gentle glacier filled with synthesizer harmonics and microtones. Quiet electric guitar hums and strums close it out on a contented, peaceful note.
Modern psychedelia is alive and vibrant. Terrastock nation's freak flag is flying high, channeling the ghost of the Avalon Ballroom of the 60s or Cologne, Germany of the 70s with a tasty array of excellent bands like Ghost or Bardo Pond. None are exaggerating classic psyche-rock/folk into such cartoon-like fantasy, in every conceivable manner, like Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO. By all accounts, AMT live up to their billing, "A Freak-Out Group For the 21st Century," but not by doing so flippantly. The members of Acid Mothers Temple are the real deal, certified organic, making music harvested from the absolute fringes of their very lives In the end, it's the absolute genius of their music, cutting through the din of the lysergic cacophony, which matters. New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple, again while not their most concentrated dose, is nonetheless fantastic sermon, expounded from the day-glo pulpit of sage Kawabata Makoto and Co. If you haven't experimented with them yet, this is a nice clean tab for your first Acid Test. If you have, well, what are you waiting for? A lovely labyrinth of sound awaits...
|
