Acid Mothers Temple - New Geocentric World Of Acid Mother Temple

  by Andrew Carver

published: 17 / 12 / 2001

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Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO is a collective of 30-plus primarily Japanese artists and oddballs, a dozen of whom show up for their latest effort, 'New Geocentric World .…' As usual, AMT march to their own drummer, creating a varied album that goes from sensory overload tranquillity and back again — usually turning on a dime to do so. There's some varied instrumentation on this album; apart from the regular drums, "monster" bass, keyboards, saxophones and guitar, the performers are credited with peacock harp, bouzouki, cornemuse, zurna (described to me as a "bagpipe, but without the bag"), beer and cigarettes, kendo, cosmos, cheesecake, cosmic joker, erotic underground and "dancin' king" — and of course the ever-present Father MOO, credited as "telstar gnome," among other things, on earlier albums appears as "guru and zero." By my count this is their eighth album, after three on the Japanese PSF label, a tribute to Occitan folk music, a live record 'Live in Occident', a soundtrack for an imaginary underground film 'Wild Grls A-go-go' and a double LP out on Britain's Static Caravan-Resonant label, 'Absolute Freak Out - Zap Your Mind!' —all this since 1995. I'm not even going to get into the comps, extensive tours or the mini-album. Their latest album started off as my least-favourite AMT effort, but it's gaining fast and now holds the number two spot (just after 'Pataphysical Freak Out Mu!') Recommended for anyone who's into Japanese psych, it's a bit like a distorted Ghost colliding with with white-hot guitar splurge and thundering drums of Mainliner, and encompasses the two ends of psychedelia — Blue Cheer to the Incredible String Band — in one somewhat schizophrenic package, packaged with eyebending neon dayglo cover art. The new album's first track is 'Psycho Buddha', which starts off with jingling bell tones and a repeated vocal sample of someone saying "What" before launching into a ground zero explosion of pounding percussion, guitar shredding, indistinct vocals buried deep in the mix, feedback, rumbling and howls of unknown origin. Twenty minutes of it. Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but right up the alley for those buying this because of group leader Kawabata Makoto and drummer Koizumi Hajime's involvement in monstro-psych-free-jazz trio Mainliner. AMT pulled a similar stunt on their first self-titled album, but this newer track is more interesting, and less of the music lost in white noise. The next song, 'Space Age Ballad', is a gentler effort, with acoustic guitar, lilting vocals, and some bowed instrument (I'm guessing) providing a constant rise and fall of wheezing sound. The next track, 'You're Still Now Near Me Everytime', has reverberating guitar, deep bass, drums and a female vocalist accompanied by trilling synthesiser that wanders from headphone to headphone, bleeping away without much apparent regard for what any of the other musicians are doing. The vocals drop away for some extended psychedelic guitar leads in the last half of the 10-minute track. 'Universe of Romance' features some plucked medieval-sounding instrument, echoing vocals and more of the oscillating space sounds that show up all over the album. Just in case you were thinking the AMT were going to go easy on your eardrums after knocking you over the head on the first track, 'Occie Lady', is more of the monster psych associated with groups like High Rise and Mainliner, and not the Occitanian folk song update those familiar with AMT's 'La Novia' album might have expected. It might actually be the first track in reverse: The guitars, drum and bass rage on for six minutes then, with a sudden piano chord, the song concludes with two minutes of shambolic keyboards. 'Mellow Hollow Love' is one of the folky tracks, with its strummed and plucked guitar and male vocals; unfortunately, someone decided to disfigure it with bursts of squealing static. It doesn't work, except near the end where the static becomes less obtrusive. The album concludes with the ambient 'What Do I Want to Know (Like Heavenly Kisses Part 2)' which starts off sounding like a gigantic synthetic orchestra tuning up before settling into some pleasant overlapping drones. It concludes with some reverberating,slowly strummed guitar. 'New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple' isn't easy listening, but if all goes well, you'll certainly be freaked out by the end of it — in a good way.

Track Listing:-

1 PSYCHO BUDDHA
2 SPACE AGE BALLAD
3 YOU'RE STILL NOW NEAR ME EVERYTIME
4 UNIVERSE OF ROMANCE
5 OCCIE LADY
6 MELLOW HOLLOW LOVE
7 WHAT DO I WANT TO KNOW

Band Links:-

https://twitter.com/speedguru69
https://twitter.com/acidmothers
http://acidmothers.com/
https://www.facebook.com/acidmotherstempleofficial/

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