Playful and swoonsome as ever, the umpteenth Acid Mothers Temple album in their Melting Paraiso UFO guise arrives with a characteristic fusion of wailing guitar histrionics, a fluidly rolling rhythm section and outer space synthesizer threnodies that never cease in their constantly exploring — and explosive — quest for the perfect psychedelic riff.
This marriage between repetition, free-form guitar and electronics give the whole that familiar woozy sensation of being deliriously swept up into a whirling vortex of sound while remaining firmly rooted to the ground. It’s a heady feeling, swerving, warbling and shuddering, with Wolf‘s bass and Satoshima Nani‘s drums solidly holding everything together, while equally capable of shifting gear bang in the middle of a song. There are also some hushed vocals from Jyonson Tsu for a change, and a finger-tight dropout and key change into a surprisingly strings-heavy direction on the stirringly upright “From Planet Orb With Love Part 1” that redirects Acid Mothers into pastures both fresh and freefalling.
Likewise, the cover of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti‘s “Sycamore Trees” from Twin Peaks (Acid Mothers Temple should surely perform at the Road House should there ever be a fourth series of the show) lets Kawabata Makoto‘s singing hold the main line for the first five minutes or so. Makoto wrangles his strings into stellar life over the relatively languid space blues that the band unfurl in classic rock style before kicking into brightly-coloured overdrive once more, in case anyone was missing out on some distended plank-spanking action. It’s a slight departure for Acid Mothers, but one that they can still give their distinctive twist.
If it seemed like “From Planet Orb With Love” was following on from classic tracks of before, then that sensation is confirmed by two further versions of the quintessential Acid Mothers rocker “Pink Lady Lemonade”. However, while the melody is the same, its delivery is mellifluously variegated on the “You’re My Orb” version, led into by steel-strung acoustic guitars from Makoto and Tsuyama Atsushi that float on a bed of swoops and swirls, drifting gently more than exploding into fireworks — and it even features a harmonica.
Electric Dream Ecstasy is one of the more varied Acid Mothers Temple releases of recent years, and not just for the differing covers on the vinyl and CD editions. It’s an LP that draws on their own past as well as that of mind-bending music in general and from their Twin Peaks fandom in particular. While all the familiar elements are there in full — Makoto’s guitar, Higashi Hiroshi‘s synthesizer, Mitsuru Tabata‘s rhythm guitar — the new members of the group bring a freshness that’s no bad thing either.
-Linus Tossio-
