Monolith Cocktail Blog

ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona

Acid Mothers Reynols ‘Vol. 2’
(Hive mind Records) 27^th January 2022

Interstellar overdrive time once more as the long-standing Krautrock replicants, torchbearers Acid Mothers Temple join forces with the Argentine avant-garde rock leftfielders the Reynols for a second volume of mushroom incantation space, acid-rock psych and outer limits tripping.

The constantly regenerative Acid Mothers collective, who’s only mainstays, guides are the founding members Kawabata Makoto and Higashi Hiroshi (though it should be noted that one-time Boredoms founding guitarist, the Japanese legend and serial Acid Mothers offender Tabata Mitsuru appears on this invocation of the group), embarked on an extensive tour of the South American continent back in 2017. It was during this sojourn, a year before the Mothers 2018 Reverse Of Rebirth personnel change, that the collective also took time out to record and play shows with the Reynols, whose own haywire provenance dates back decades, with the group formulating their outsider credentials from the outset in 1993; dropping the original ‘Ensemble’ from their name three years later.

The fruits of this kool-aid venture fill up another record of enlivened experimenting, both groups coalescing into what sounds like a barely contained freak-out on untethered lunar surfaces of blancmange: an improvised communion in the light of a melted moonbeam primal soup.   

Acid Mothers Temple fans won’t be surprised to hear that their contributions sound like the creeping stirrings of Phallus Dei era Amon Düül II, a bit of Guru Guru (who they have of course collaborated with in the past), the Cosmic Couriers, Xhol Caravan and Ash Ra Tempel. Meanwhile the Reynols loudest, most obvious contribution comes from Miguel Tomasín’s erratic and excitable, hard-hitting piano improvs. Sharing room on the piano stool with Anton Webren, György Liget, Cage. Mike Garson and Oscar Peterson, the free-range pianist goes to work in conjuring up the avant-garde, Fluxus and crashing chords show time Brecht on Broadway. This is all in contrast to the gravity-less atmospherics, more comfortable rhythm section and mumbo-jumbo mantra vocals on the second jam, ‘Antimatter-Sound Milkshake’ – I’ll order just the one of those please. Chaos is somehow kept together: although the drums occasionally seem to slip timings and lose the feel, preempting where this 18-legged beast is going.

Speedball rushes and highs are the order of the day as whistling shooting stars cross the astral charts and warped guitars provide a shifting mood of cosmic cowboy blues, space bird rock, post-punk, heavy meta(l) and of course Krautrock magnificence.

The Acid Mothers, more than willing to open up the sound and mind to let in this Argentine chapter of the universal acid avant-garde lodge to feast on the cosmic soup, trade blows with the Reynols who offer up piano mayhem, transmogrified flute and obscure sounds to an already fuzzed and gnarled hallucination.

The good folk at Hive Mind (yet to release anything that’s not essential in my opinion) have guided this one to vinyl. So, do yourselves a favour and add it to the psychedelic mind melt section of your collection.

From The Archives:

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Ft. Geoff Leigh ‘Chosen Star Child’s Confession’  (2020)

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‘Reverse Of Rebirth In Universe’  (2018)

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‘In C’ & ‘La Novia’. (2018)

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