Since the late 1990s Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple and its numerous spinoff bands, side projects and collaborations have been assaulting listeners with all manner of music, and I say assaulting because much of the music they release is chaotic, clamorous and fast—speed runs made up of sheets of distorted guitar noise that gets called psychedelic but is too aggressive for the peace and love associations attached to the label. Forget your kinder psychedelic drugs—these guys are an aural STP trip.
Acid Mothers Temple have released scads of albums under their umbrella of names and assorted line-ups, and many of them bear amusing titles that demonstrate the irreverent respect the band has for their musical heroes: Freak Out, Son of a Bitches Brew, Electric Heavyland, Minstrel in the Galaxy, Are We Experimental?, Holy Black Mountain Side, and believe me I could go on. They’re prolific, experimental, atonal, fearless, and not afraid to bend your mind.
Like I said—think STP. You have your choice of sitting back and enjoying the ride, or jumping out of your first-floor window, screaming, “I can fly!” and ending up in the shrubbery with some scratches. I’ve done both.
Especially when it comes to the band’s eponymous 1997 debut Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. It’s a psychedelic freakout of epic proportions and heavy on the atonal interstellar overdrive, as is evident from song titles like “Speed Guru,” “Amphetamine A Go Go,” and “Satori LSD.” Acid Mothers Temple have cited Krautrock as an influence, but they’re not speeding down the Autobahn on this one—they’re on the Bonneville Salt Flats, liquefying salt.
Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. is sequenced as one long song (almost 53 minutes) but actually encompasses twelve more or less discrete songs—the difficulty, at least in several instances, comes with knowing where one song ends and the next one starts. And not all of the LP’s songs are Speed Racers. For the most part, I’m partial to the ones that are, but slow space rockers like “Pink Lady Lemonade”—which follows on the heels of “Amphetamine A Go Go” and features lots of alien transmissions from frontman Cotton Casino’s synthesizer and the ethereal vocals of Suzuki Chisen (I think)—offer welcome breaks in the chaos.
And chaos is the only way to describe noise fests like “Speed Guru,” which more than lives up to its name. Six thousand beats per minute, with god knows what kind of instruments making what kind of caterwaul. The song drones at warp speed, features all manner of space winds and unhappy spirits, and includes sudden clamorous interludes that bring to mind atonal automobile accidents.
The song roars, features tsunamis of fuzz, never lets up but instead doubles down, and you get the sense that the band in the studio is surrounded by a whirlwind of flying stuff, paper and guitar picks and cigarette butts and the spare didgeridoo and fishing rod (liner notes say Higashi Hiroshi plays one, although the liner notes are the work of an obvious prankster), all circling their heads so they have to duck occasionally. Because that’s the sound cyclone they’re producing and continue to produce unabated for almost eighteen minutes.
It’s not for the weak of heart, and I recommend you listen to it wearing one of those funny foam helmets you see certain guys in the NFL sporting. You could get hurt. I advise you never to play it near a knick-knack shelf.
“Amphetamine A Go Go” is an anarchic guitar freakout that brings the Velvet Underground’s “I Heard Her Call My Name” to mind. Maureen Tucker famously said of Lou Reed’s performance on guitar, “You can’t hear anything but Lou. He was the mixer in there, so he, having a little ego trip at the time, turned himself so far up that there’s no rhythm, there’s no nothing.”
As good a description of “Amphetamine A Go Go” as any, although there’s some “European Son” in there as well, sans the breaking glass and flushing toilet. I’ve checked the liner notes carefully, and while one guy is credited with playing the penguin and someone else plays cheese cake, I’m not sure whether Ichi plays the dog or is, in fact, an actual dog. But the point is, I don’t see anyone credited for playing the toilet. Johan Wellens is credited with cosmic narration and freak power. Higashi Hiroshi is credited with playing the fishing rod.
“Satori LSD” is, well, cataclysmic is the only way to describe it. It’s a drum-smash, heavy Apocalypse Wow of a song, with I can’t tell you what playing an almost melodic line in the middle of it. Mostly, it sounds like some hardware store throwing a fit because it’s not getting what it wants, although what it really wants is to throw a fit, if you get my drift.
As it goes on the space noise increases, then it slowly, very slowly, comes to a crashing halt, to be replaced by a piano and some horn and/or violin playing a slow and mournful passage that is followed by a piercing turn-it-off noise that goes on and on like perma-tinnitus and the only thing keeping you from turning it off is pure curiosity—how long, exactly, you wonder, do Acid Mothers Temple intend to torture me? Longer than you’d like or think possible is the answer.
I think the quiet passage is called “Hawaiian Brownie” and the white noise is called “Acid Mothers Temple For All!” Which is hilarious, because “Acid Mothers Temple For All!” is for literally nobody. Not even that tiny subset of the human population that listens to Metal Machine Music for pleasure. It’s what’s commonly called a room clearer, perfect for driving those who can’t take a hint, party’s over, from your apartment, leaving their winter coats behind, cigarettes and beer cups still hanging in the air.
I have no idea where one song stops, and the next song starts in the series of songs that begin with the droning “From The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. I” through “From The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. II.” I can tell you I hear what could be Wellens cosmic narration, followed by some horn noises, a weird chant, and some strummed string instruments, but is that “The Top Head Pixies”? It could well be because the clanging and chaotic stop-and-start that follows and finally settles into a steady din could well be “Zen Feedbacker.” It certainly sounds like a “Zen Feedbacker” to me, and it’s a lot of fun—sort of like somebody turning a sink garbage disposal unit on and off after filling it with silver oyster forks and an assortment of glass eyeballs.
Some cosmic synthesizer space blip follows it, then by some totally out-there vocals (think Venus Opera House) and random noise. I have no idea where we are by this point, “Coloradoughnut”? Then a guy comes in talking in an echo chamber, seemingly to himself, while all kinds of phantasmagorical noise come in and out. He goes on for a long time. He could be saying something vitally important, but we’ll never know. Then it all ends, which tells me it was “From The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. II.”
I’m not sure if you’re meant to enjoy any of the above, but it certainly is a relief to me when the band launches into “Amphetamine A Go Go.” The noise is cathartic, cleans the ear pipes so to speak, unless you’re averse to what Robert Christgau calls “Skronk,” and Lester Bangs called “horrible noise,” in which case I advise you to steer clear of this baby altogether and give Son of a Bitches Brew a listen.
It’s a very different animal. One that won’t tear your face off and then wear it to your parents’ house in hopes of a free meal. This LP is capable of anything. Sure, you’ll find some small measure of peace in “Pink Lady Lemonade,” but mostly Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. is Freak Power unleashed.
Acid Mothers Temple are Merry Pranksters; their destination lies approximately 30,000 light-years beyond Furthur, and you can tell they’re having fun getting there. Their idea of fun isn’t always my idea of fun, but Acid Mothers Temple are fearless and don’t give a shit. Just get on the bus, take the ride, and if the ride gets too intense, remember that no sense makes sense.
“There’s no rhythm, there’s no nothing.” But in the case of Acid Mothers Temple, the nothing is everything, and the everything is nothing I want to miss. Including the fishing rod. And Ichi, who is either a dog or a person named Ichi playing a dog.
I don’t hear the dog on the album. I don’t hear the penguin either. If you happen to know Ichi, or the penguin, or the person who plays the penguin, for that matter, please let them know I’d love to hear from them.
I’m curious.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
