PATAPHISICAL FREAK OUT MU!!

The Acid Mothers Temple unit is a strange one, and I had no idea what to expect though their album covers signify a return to the vintage psychedelic acid fuelled flower power of the late 60s. I don't mind a brain blast occasionally of psychedelia such as Gong, or space rock such as Hawkwind, but those bands are nowhere near as tripped out as Acid Mother's Temple, not even close. It is like vintage Gong without the lyrics, mixed with Hawkwind's jamming sessions from their earlier years such as "Space Ritual", and one may also detect hints of krautrock such as Can or Grobschnitt's "Solar Music". "Pataphysical Freak Out MU!!" is extreme acid rock taken to the Nth degree. The band are concentric on capturing spaced out LSD soaked atmospherics using any musical instrument at their disposal. The guitars are a prominent focus using phased wah wah effects and sustained string bends.

The opening track 'Cosmic Audrey/Acid Takion' sounds like Jimi Hendrix had forgotten the words; it is simply mind expanding spacey guitar with a ton of feedback and a driving fast tempo beat. It is a well played guitar solo, but it has no riff or tune and is completely improvised over a sonic musical scape. It is certainly one of the better tracks on the album simply for its brute force and no holds barred killer guitar that shreds into the brain; designed to blow the brain apart in would say. Makoto Kawabata is the guitar speed master who is joined by layers of Atsushi Tsuyama bass explosions and Hajime Koizumi of percussion blasts.

Next on the menu, is a dose of tranquillity on 'White Summer Of Love/Third Eye Of The Whole World', with some acoustics and ambience, once again without a melody, or tune, but simply a hypnotic sound to kick back to, presumably after a hit of the acid; it is a come down song. The space whispers are reminiscent of Gong but not as sensuous, though the vocals on 'Astrological Overdrive' are a little more relaxing with all the spacey textures vibrating around them.

The music though on the album builds with hypnotic repetitions and includes extremely distorted guitars such as on the lengthy 'Blue Velvet Blues' that is virtually an improvised guitar on high phased fuzzy reverb. Makoto again takes center stage but it may grate on the nerves after about 6 minutes, though it is only about half way through. The sound is ultra-psyched out and is obviously LSD induced. It would not be surprising to learn that the whole album was created under the influence, such is the vibe of the music.

This is quite a chilling album that left me cold from wanting to explore further into this band. It is certainly a curio and the band have produced a plethora of other albums equally as trippy in the content one would expect. They have an underground cult following for good reason and will only appeal to a certain section of listeners; a very elite section at that who are into stoner rock with an extreme acid fuelled edge. It is what it is, and I would say if you wanted to listen to some of the trippiest music on the planet perhaps you could go no further than Acid Mother's Temple and the Melting Paraisio UFO, and this is one of their highest rated albums, therefore a good place to start. This stoner rock is not for the squeamish, that is for certain.

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