Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso UFO - Cometary Orbital Drive

9.0 - Japan - 2008

A relatively accessible Acid Mothers Temple record from 2008. The Japanese psych collective is somewhat stripped down to a quartet on this one, but you wouldn’t know it from the typically densely layered sounds therein. As the fantastically mystical liner notes explain, the album – a suite of four tracks – is based around the repeating note sequence A – E – D – A – G – Dflat, which, it is said, “create resonance waves deep in the brain, awakening the second mind slumbers behind our consciousness and invoking a sense of almost infinite ecstasy.” Gibberish for sure, but I buy it nonetheless (Side note: whenever you come across a sentence that begins with “it is said”, buckle up, ‘cause, brother, you are in for a ride!) 

Of the four tracks themselves, “Light My Fire Ball” begins the proceedings with some ambient, aleatory ringing percussion that slowly gathers itself into a slow mutant blues. Bassist Tsuyama Atsushi adds some vocals that are neither sung nor spoken and seem to be in some strange language partway between Japanese and English. It’s all a bit formless, but this is just a warm-up before the main event begins. The next three tracks constitute almost an hour straight of that endlessly repeated six note sequence. And it is awesome. Transcendent, mystical, just as the liner notes promised. “Planet Billions Of Light-Years Away” is a 26 minute crescendo in which that six note sequence builds into an almost overwhelming mantra. You know the big guitar freakout is coming, but it takes a little bit longer than expected. No matter, as the track proceeds, it locks itself down into a series of psychedelic plateaus and just as you begin to get hypnotized by all the repetition, the sound builds again to the next level. Fantastic.

The final track, “Milky Way Star”, is a reprise of sorts, albeit faster and more frenzied – definitely on the noisier end of the Acid Mothers Temple spectrum (although, again, this record attenuates their noisier tendencies in favour of psych repetition). The middle sequence, “Circular System 7777777”, however, is the definite highlight. Beginning with that ubiquitous six-note sequence in much the same way as “Planet Billions Of Light-Years Away”, after a couple of minutes, a drum machine appears and leads the track into a cosmic disco jam (a foreshadowing of sorts of Acid Mothers Temple’s disco-influenced Doobie Wonderland). It’s an incredible piece – sort of what you expect to hear in some transdimensional rave. And when the record ends and the last vestiges of “Milky Way Star” reverberate around the room, the listener can come back down to Earth, although part of your mind will remain forever in the stars and they with you.