Sunday 26 April 2009

Review - Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO - Interstellar Guru and Zero

Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO - Interstellar Guru and Zero

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10 out of 10

A looping sample resonates against itself causing a vibrating, almost warbley effect. This is then slashed from eyebrow to jugular by an almost unfathomable slice of acoustic fretwork, all the while strange and eerie samples, drones and calamitous feedback rages from left to right, speaker to ear. This builds, slowly, into an almost Lynchian nightmare, a mind-fuck that "La Tenia" would be proud of.

This is Acid Mothers Temple (& the Melting Paraiso UFO)

They (who even are they? Shadowy bastards you must admit) say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, well it must also be said that this is true for the old shell-like lugs pasted either side of your cranium, because much like fellow noise-niks Sunn 0))), Asva, Khanate or indeed any other band that the 'Gert Frobe' handed Stephen O'Malley wishes to put his mind to, you will either love or hate AMT (&TMPUFO). They are like aural Marmite which is a surprisingly suitable analogy; as the sound they produce is thick, gloopy and very very dark.

Astral Projection From Holy Shangrila starts off like a welcome message stuck in a forever looping groove and ends fifteen minutes later like the last shuttle taking off from Earth in the centre of a violent riot because every country has just simultaneously depressed THAT red button and also the reporting of this happened to over run an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger and Norris is a wee bit narked about the whole thing. Except it didn't end there because, at the key moment, just when everything was flame, smoke and cacophonic, a small man wearing a fez appeared playing a lute and everyone just took a seat and tapped along, smiling.

Confused? You had better get this band down that bony labyrinth of yours.

The closest I can get to describing the sound of Acid Mothers Temple is: imagine the following bands - Boris, Envy, Melt Banana, DJ Scotch Egg and Mad Capsule Markets, all being forced to play every song they have ever written all at once, at the opposite tempo whilst Takashi Miike is projecting all of his films at once onto a giant screen but he has left the volume to be controlled by the clumsy paws of a sly panda.

Or maybe this is closer: the first track is like fucking someone, except that halfway through you realise that you are the one getting fucked but it is more painful and raucous than you enjoy and you are on the verge of crying out "Rape, Rape!" when there is a sudden click and you realise that this is in fact the best ever. And track two is like waking up in a cloud; epic, ambient, calm, serene, safe and a little bit ticklish.

Now I don't know half as much about Japanese culture as I would like and listening to this made me realise that I don't even know 0.002% as much as I need to.

Fanbloodytastic.

Listen: www.myspace.com/acidmotherstemple

Tracklist:
1. Astral Projection From Holy Shangrila
2. Interstellar Guru and Zero

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