Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paradiso U.F.O.
New Geocentric World
Squealer
When’s the last time you saw long hair, longer beards, and kaftans on the cover of Wire Magazine? Yeppers, congratulation to Acid Mothers Temple for making the masthead of creative music’s most uptight but informative print publication. An awesome accomplishment for a band that so clearly favors a more instinctive and even childlike style of head/heart music over the more academic and well-planned ventures that the Wire usually throws its not inconsiderable resources behind. Pick that issue up, it’s got some great photos and quotes from this mystical collective.
New Geocentric World, however, is an altogether more difficult proposition to get your head around than snapshots of hirsute Japanese mystics. It shouldn’t be this way, y’know, music this natural should be reacted to and experienced, instead of worried over. The proof is in the tunes. A track like opening 27-minute total hippie freak out “Psycho Buddha” is a free spazz call to arms, pick up an instrument, blow baby blow, flick the lights on and off, just lie back, don’t you even think about stroking your chin. Scary and life-affirming at the same time.
But the Acid Mothers care about you (and me) and your mental health, so they follow it immediately with the elegantly simple mantra idyll of “Space Age Ballad.” Almost a hymn, man. Then comes the crazy Yoko and Hawkwind interstellar jam of “You’re Still Near Me Everything.” So fucking heavy, jesus, you’ll be scratching your eyeballs out in perfect joy. Maybe coming close to this kind of music is what drove Kevin Shields insane.
Next up is “Universe Of Romance” • reaching the edge of the universe • built around an ancient Eastern folk melody and your speakers panning in and out. What was that movie about the sensory deprivation tank? “Occie Lady” is an insane Fillmore East 3 AM garage punk jam that rages all over your Jefferson Airplane bootlegs. Next up is the sweetly cloying “Mellon Hollow Love” that conjures up the ghosts of… um… Ghost. Remember Ghost? They were fucking cool; but this song is fucking cooler. And the whole thing ends with the consciousness-shattering blowout of “What Do I Want to Know (Heavenly Kisses Vol. 2)” that steamrolls over you with brutal ambience, before imperceptibly fading into delicate little diamond waves, pulsing in and out, slowly waving goodbye. The sound of thee infinite. It will kill you and bring you back to life again.
Squealer, http://www.squealer.com, http://www.geocities.com/acidmothers
