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The reissue of the "bootleg" LP Born to be Wild in the USA 2000 is a very welcome treat. Released amid a lot of the fury around the band's biggest period of growth in popularity, this LP exactly captures this band's chaotic side. It's overdriven so far into the red that within five minutes of hitting play you wonder if the record has self-destructed. This truly captures the vibe of the "Psychedelic Speed Freak," which Kawabata has proclaimed himself to be. The performance is phenomenal. In fact, "La Novia" alone is worth the whole release. Obscure, over the top, incredibly psychedelic, rough-edged, and dangerous, this record works in every way. The cover is a picture of a biker from the 70s. Perfect. Their new album, proper, Mantra of Love, is on the opposite spectrum of their sound. A return to tributing Occitan music, Acid Mothers Temple are again at full force on this thoughtful and well-executed album. Cotton Casino announced that she would be leaving the band before they went in to record this, and while this isn't the last release with her (Ochre has just released a 7" that is supposed to be her last recordings), it is one of the last. Continuing the trend that could be seen with St. Captain and Univers Zero Cotton's vocals figure very heavily into Mantra of Love. However, where those albums had a series of songs, the new album is a two track epic suite based around a handful of melodic ideas. The first, "La Le Lo," is a half an hour's worth of trance-inducing tug-of-war. Lulling you into a daze with the repetitive bouzouki and vocal part lead nicely into a few free and rolling explosions in dynamic, as aided by Cotton's twinkling synthesizer dives and Koizumi's drumming. The first explosion is sort of subdued, but the second opens the floodgates. Distortion, synth squalls, and pounding drums bring the song to a climactic end. The second track, "L'Ambition dans le Miroir" is half the length of the first but packs as much of a punch. Gurgling synth, ringing percussion, violin, and a slowly rolling drum beat accent a modal guitar line that brings Six Organs of Admittance to mind. Cotton's vocals soar above the mix, though, really, I'd have been just as happy if they'd been left off. Nonetheless, this is a solid album. The last two records both come from the collaboration between Gong's Daevid Allen and AMT's Makoto Kawabata and Cotton Casino. Having first played together at a festival in the Northwest US, they'd never met or played music together before, but once they began, they knew there was something special to be communicated between them through music. The first fruits of that meeting are now being made available. The first, Makoto Mango, is a 4-track recording made by Allen, Kawabata, and Casino under the moniker "Guru & Zero," under which they played a handful of shows. Built largely around Kawabata's guitar loops and textures, Cotton and David's contributions pepper the washes with bleeps, yelps and other noises. It's easy to hear why they thought they should continue to collaborate, as this is one of the most exciting and best releases to come from the AMT camp. However, the second release is the new Gong album, Acid Motherhood with significant contributions from Kawabata and Casino, and it couldn't be further from succeeding. Misguided funky psyche, lame puns, and terrible songwriting make this pretty hard to listen to. But, if one is brave (strong? stupid?) enough to get that far, the 8th track, "Buzuki Logix," is a spectacular solo bouzouki track recorded by Kawabata, and the 10th, "Makototen," is a pretty good, pummeling guitar assault. However, that's nowhere near enough to save the album. In the liner notes, Daevid Allen goes into detail about how he sees this collaboration as "old dissolving with young" or a birth of a new psychedelia. The cover is a mirror image of Daevid's head superimposed onto a pregnant, nude woman's body. If this has any connection to a birth, it's not a pretty baby. Though my checking account is still limping from the last couple years with Acid Mothers Temple, I'll still be gobbling up their new releases, as they're in fine form. However, I think I'll be avoiding all future collaborations with Gong.
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