 Japanese
psych has, deservedly, garnered a reputation for being way out there.
Ever since Keiji Haino got together with Tamio Shiraishi in the late
70s to form Fushitsusha, Jpsych has been marked by a severe intensity,
one that takes the psychedelic ideal of inner focus and often pushes it
to enormously personal extremes. Acid Mothers Temple And The Melting Paraiso UFO are arguably the best
known of the Jpsych bands, and like many of their peers, they're in the
habit of releasing utterly astounding amounts of music. As of this
writing, there are fifty
releases under the Acid Mothers Temple umbrella...which includes Acid
Mothers Temple And The Cosmic Inferno and Acid Mothers Temple SWR, but doesn't include the countless side projects and solo releases of the collective's guru, guitarist Makoto Kawabata.
So now
what? Where does one even begin to tackle this mountain of music? As is
often the case with artists as prolific as this, the starting point
should be the starting point...the album that kicked off the epic
journey. The self titled 1997 debut (not including a cassette only
release the previous year) is the first true flowering of the aesthetic
that the collective would pursue doggedly for the next decade. It's a
first strike that Kawabata spent two and a half years obsessively
tweaking and refining, finally arriving at the hyperactive, overdriven,
brain smearingly glorious mess that makes AMT the behemoth they are.
Even those possessing a familiarity with the band's enormous catalog
may find opener "Acid Mothers Prayer" startling. It not only sets the
template, it sets it on fire, whipping up a frenzy of echo drenched
psychedelic Hell that has more than a touch of 60s Sci-Fi. It sounds,
to borrow another band's name, like a flying saucer attack, a million
distinct pieces happening all at once, each clear and strong enough to
demand your attention. Each element is given equal weight in the mix,
which results in (at first) a cloud of seriously threatening white
noise, but which, with headphones, unfolds into a dark menagerie. The
bass line alone sounds like it's about to burst a blood vessel, and
matched with Kawabata's manic guitar, creates a fever dream that skirts
the edge of panic. Otherworldly cries and sound effects compete in the
crowded mix, all but burying the aggressive drums. The band would work
from this basic setup for many years into the future, but here it has
the added layer of novelty, a freshness that can only come from doing
something the first time.
"Speed Guru" follows with a reprieve, a low bass tone that slowly
flanges and creeps as a voice lectures through a thick wall of echo.
It's all so cliché, so stereotypically psychedelic, but the
context makes all the difference...the band delves so deeply into its
own specific realm that a bit of genre based familiarity isn't just
forgivable, but necessary. In any event, it doesn't last long: "From
The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. I" follows with jagged, free form wreckery,
a thoroughly disorienting stab that does its part to yank the
listener's bearings right out from under them. At this point, even the
packaging becomes intriguingly inscrutable: despite there being twelve
songs listed, the whole thing is presented as one long track on the CD,
and the pieces flow together (or crash against each other) to the point
that distinguishing one tune from another is a pointless errand.
Good. "Acid Mothers Temple And The Melting Paraiso U.F.O." is an album
that is best listened to as one journey, a walk through a warped museum
of the mind, one that presents a new sound, a new world with each
turned corner. One signpost worth mentioning, however, is "Pink Lady
Lemonade," a piece that would later prove to be definitive for the band
(it has been recorded and re-recorded countless times in their massive
catalog.) Here, it's more laid back that later versions, lazily
drifting through a narcotic haze, an oasis in the noise storm. The
whole thing concludes with a practical joke: final track "Acid Mothers
Temple For All!" is two minutes of a high pitched tone, guaranteed to
drive your dog out of the room (and you out of the headphones.)
When you have a band like Acid Mothers Temple, there is no "best"
album. It's all different facets of the same idea, and the idea
presented here is rich and strange enough to power its creator through
one of the most prolific and admired discographies in the underground.
So while it might not be the "best" release, it's fascinating to
watch the groundwork unfold for the first time, an initial
characterization of what AMT is, and would be, about. Powerful, mind
bending
and tireless, the Acid Mothers saga starts here.
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Available at Amazon US.
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