ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE - ABSOLUTE FREAK OUT 2x vinyl lp

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 ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O. - ABSOLUTE FREAK OUT: Zap Your Mind

Vinyl and jacket are in excellent condition.  Played once.  Perfect and beautiful in all ways.  Released on RESONANT RECORDS/ STATIC CARAVAN (STATIC RESONANCE 1).  2001.  One lp red, the other black.  Gatefold sleeve.  This is in my top ten best lp's of all time.  I can not begin to state the brilliance of this record.

Led by the original "speed guru" himself, Kawabata Makoto, Acid Mothers Temple are a 12-piece band this time around, and these 12 people have come up with a bounty of music so magical and infuriating that a single disc would not have been enough. Absolutely Freak Out: Zap Your Mind! is Acid Mothers Temple's highest peak, over two hours of their trademark freakout goodness. "Supernal Infinite Space/Waikiki Easy Meat" is the highlight, starting with a long, spaced-out guitar drone, which finally coalesces when the back-masked drums arrive to save the day. This piece is reminiscent of Acid Mothers Temple's other peak, "In E," their adapted take on Terry Riley's "In C." The track is a complete Krautrock drone freakout that relaxes into a jazzy, spacy-lounge trip. Were there to be a best of AMT, "Supernal Infinite Space" should be the lead track. "Children of the Drab" is notable for its similarity in structure to Faust's "Tapes." The song starts out a slow Pink Floyd-ian blues, then moves into an acid-washed middle section of Floyd's "Echoes," with vocalist Cotton Casino's strange Yoko-esque vocalizing and a menacing guitar. After building up and melting down several times, the band name-drops Stone Cold Steve Austin and then launches into one of its most aggressive pieces, "Surfin' Paris-Texas," which only runs about two minutes before again morphing into another section. The piece is staggering in construction and disorienting in execution. Absolutely Freak Out: Zap Your Mind! is a perfect introduction to this most prolific and intimidating of bands. It showcases the level of diversity and the instrumental acumen of the group. Recommended.(allmusic.com)

After performing with such bands as Toho Sara, Ohkami No Jikan, Musica Transonic, and Mainliner, Japanese guitarist Makoto Kawabata decided to continue his musical explorations by bringing together likeminded individuals to create trippy psychedelic freak-outs inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krautrock, and '70s progressive hard rock. Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. (Underground Freak Out) were founded in 1996 as a "soul collective." It's not a commune in the full sense since the members don't all live together, but it is based on communal values and has even been mistaken by some people for a religious cult.

Kawabata started the collective because he wanted to give unknown musicians a chance to record and release albums that would reach a wider audience; his original intent was not to create an ongoing touring and recording band. Indeed, the group's self-titled debut album, which was released on Japan's PSF Records in November 1997, was essentially a Kawabata solo project. He performed jam sessions with several other musicians, then edited and overdubbed the tapes to create something akin to musique concrète. Kawabata must have been pleased with the results, because he assembled a group of musicians to tour overseas as Acid Mothers Temple in 1998.

Atsushi Tsuyama played guitar during a November 1998 Japanese tour and became the group's regular bassist in 1999. Eventually the band's steady touring lineup solidified around Kawabata, Tsuyama, guitarist and synthesizer player Higashi Hiroshi, drummer Ichiraku Yoshimitsu, and vocalist and synthesizer player Cotton Casino. Buoyed by a well-deserved reputation as a superb live band, the group continued to tour and record. They released Wild Gals a Go-Go, the soundtrack to an uncompleted Russian underground film, in 1999, and Live in Occident, a double album of performances from their 1999 overseas tour, in 2000. Acid Mothers Temple continued to expand their range of influences; for example, they drew on Tsuyama's experience performing ancient folk music for La Nòvia, an album of Occitan traditional songs that they released in 2000. Then, in 2001, they released their fourth "official" album, New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple, as well as a couple limited-edition releases. Meanwhile, the collective has spun out numerous offshoots, including Floating Flower, Nishinihon, and Tsurbami.

Many of these spinoffs appeared on the three-CD Do Whatever You Want, Don't Do Whatever You Don't Want. Released in 2002 on the Earworm label, the set featured Acid Mothers Temple music on the first disc and all the different side projects on the remaining two discs. The year 2002 ended up being an especially busy time for the band, with numerous releases including the concept album St. Captain Freak Out and the Magic Bamboo Request and their version of classical composer Terry Riley's groundbreaking In C. Magical Power from Mars landed in 2003 and collected some no longer available limited-edition 3" CDs. Mantra of Love from 2004 saw Cotton Casino exit the lineup. The band kept the ambitious release schedule going with both Just Another Band from the Cosmic Inferno and IAO Chant from the Cosmic Inferno in 2005. After adding drummer Shimura Koji to the roster, Acid Mothers Temple released Starless and Bible Black Sabbath, Have You Seen the Other Side of the Sky, Myth of the Love Electrique (featuring the voice of new female singer Kitagawa Hao), Soul of a Mountain Wolf, and Journey into the Cosmic Inferno.