ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.

Personnel: Cotton (vocals, sitar, synthesizer); Koizumi Hajime (soprano saxophone, drums, percussion). Recording information: Acid Mothers Temple (06/1996-04/1997). The Acid Mothers' debut album is by all accounts a high-intensity, full-on psychedelic freakout. Guitarist Kawabata Makoto has enlisted the help of no less than 12 collaborators -- eight of them outside the Acid Mothers' immediate circle. The album's title is also its one long jam. Drums and over-amped screaming guitars set up a barely changing wall of skronk white noise with basses blowing out the studio monitors. All of this goes on, in extremis, for an unbearable 20 minutes. When the music changes it becomes sparse, shimmering shards of either guitar, didgeridoo, saxophones, bells, percussion, or hovering voices that waft through the mix, only occasionally interrupted by a bit of stop-and-go ensemble interplay. The mix becomes spare, more spacious, more tripped-out as time goes on, building then destroying itself in textures and colors. There are places of full bliss-out ambience within it, but mostly it is dark, oblique, and murky. Have no fear, however, for Makoto will bring back the noise and the feedback, informed by the silence and ambience this time, carving out a new musicality from the disparate elements, one that is mysterious, tuneful, and wrapped as a package for expanding the boundaries of our individual listening worlds. The last 12 minutes of music on this set are among the most beautiful the Acid Mothers Temple have ever performed. And that's saying a lot. While it's true this brew is too potent for most, those willing to endure the first 20 minutes will be rewarded in lavender spades for their effort. ~ Thom Jurek