Album Review/Dominic Valvona
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Ft. Geoff Leigh ‘Chosen Star Child’s Confession’ (Riot Season) LP/15th May 2020
Krautrock replicates, bowing in reverence at the temple gates of their German inspirations, but also carrying on the lineage of their native country’s own experimental doyens (groups like Les Rallizes Dénudés and the Far East Family Band), the Acid Mothers Temple have carried the torch for acid-rock, the avant-garde and progressive when forbearers and contemporaries have faded or disbanded. Coming on like a Japanese distortion of Amon Duul II, the group has thrown themselves into the cosmology of moonage daydreams and vortex space rock for the past twenty-five years, through many lineup changes.
Continuing with the renewal incarnation of the legendary acid-rock psychedelic transcendental freak out that played on the 2018 Reverse Of Rebirth monolith, founding instigators of the Mothership, Kawabata Makoto and Higashi Hiroshi, are once more joined by worthy new disciples Jyonson Tso (vocals and ‘midnight whistler’), Satoshimi Nani (on drums) and the mysterious Wolf (on bass). Making this celestial troupe up to a sextet, English avant-garde jazziest and progressive rock doyen Geoff Leigh, of the highly influential Henry Cow icons, joins the ranks as fleeting collaborator; lending warped out, contorting and suffused atmospheric saxophone and flute to the dream weaving psychedelic acid test.
This inauguration of the infamous Japanese legends refreshed and transformed previous sonic stunners and rituals from the extensive Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. back catalogue on the last LP; part of an on-going repackage of the iconic troupe’s music that has recently seen, for the first time, a cassette tape release of both the In C and La Novia opuses by Kamikaze Tapes. Broken in, as it were, Chosen Star Child’s Confession is the troupe’s debut album of new material.
The fruits of a session with Leigh, laid down at a recording studio in London in July 2018 (with further work completed back in Japan in 2019), the Chosen Star Child’s Confession opus ticks all the right boxes in the sphere of cosmic acid indulgence. Oozing from an Egyptology of jazzy spiritual occultism, the opening totem of ‘Nightmarish Heavenly Labyrinth’ features a languid vocal drifting over wisps of flute, rapid noodling bass nuzzles, flaying guitar and cymbal swishes that evoke hints of ADII Dance Of The Lemmings and Yeti, and Embryo. Softer, laidback stirrings appear on the Stereolab acid-jazzy ‘Diamond Eyes Are Hurt’; a sort of staccato shutter echo and mild honked and spirally distant saxophone punctuated vortex of Rite Time Can, Vitamin C period Damo Suzuki, Andy Haas and, when it gets going a bit later on, West Coast acid rock. The rest of the album tunnels and bursts into action across a background of flyby comet wizzes and frizzles, high-pitched frequencies, Hawkwind mad dashes, shimmers, wild guitar, Tibetan and Afghan evocations and contorting saxophone.
If you happen to purchase the CD version, the bonus cosmic mess of eastern brassy resonance and heavy tripping experimentalism ‘Santa Maria Enfance’ is a transmogrified vision of part of Hector Berlioz’s biblical opus: the flight of the holy family from Egypt. Original performances of this suite in the mid 19th century were less than well-received, provoking hostility for its bizarreness and discordance. No wonder it proves fertile material for the Mothers.
Chosen Star Child’s Confession is a celestial rites of passage for the new intake of converts on yet another essential Mothers odyssey.
In these unprecedented times the Monolith Cocktail has never needed your support more:
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 