Acid Mothers Temple Bring Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Version Of Band To Canada
Friday March 28, 2008 @ 06:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Acid Mothers Temple

It's a given that most musicians will be asked the same questions numerous times when doing press for an album or tour. Although happy to speak about Acid Mothers Temple, group leader and guitarist Kawabata Makoto isn't interested in rehashing old answers and refers potential interviewers to the "Kawabata's Words" section of AMT's website to see what's already been covered before talking with him.

While this may seem excessive to some, in Makoto's defense he and the rest of the Japanese psychedelic rock collective usually have way too much on the go to spend time repeating themselves. When not gigging under one of their several slightly tweaked monikers — which include Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Acid Mothers SWR, Acid Mothers Guru Guru, Acid Mothers Gong and Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno — they're often hard at work crafting new abstract, mind-warping sonic journeys.

AMT's different incarnations have turned out more than 50 studio and live recordings since 1995. Despite being amongst the most productive artists in Japan's much heralded, innovative underground scene, Makoto doesn't feel that they're that prolific.

"If people feel that they really want to do something, they can arrange enough time to do it. If you can't arrange it, it means that it is obviously not a very important thing that you want to do."

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.'s soon-to-be-released Recurring Dream And Apocalypse Of Darkness was recorded in December and January and contains two heavy, extended tracks: "Eternal Incantation Or Perpetual Nightmare" and "Recurring Dream And Apocalypse Of Darkness." While always quite intriguing, Makoto warns that listeners shouldn't spend too much time pondering how he selects his unique song titles.

"Almost all of our titles and song names have no meaning because, to me, music is just music. We don't have any message in our lyrics and sing in improvised languages that have no meanings. The only reason I put song names in English is so that many people can understand them.

"If people can read titles and song names, then they can imagine something by themselves. Sometimes I steal titles and song names from some very famous titles. Our artwork has no meaning behind it either. The only important thing to me is that the title, song names and artwork interests people enough to make them want to pick up the album at a record store."

It wouldn't be an AMT concert without a wide range of highly collectible merchandise for music geeks to drool over. In addition to Recurring Dream And Apocalypse Of Darkness, the act are also selling their new Acid Mothers Temple Festival Vol. 5 DVD along with a limited-edition tour T-shirt (only 600 made) and CD titled Acid Mothership Live on their current tour. Hard-to-find releases of members' solo and side projects will be available, too.

Many of the music-related goodies available at shows are issued in small quantities to make them easier to create and transport. While this is fine for "tour-only" releases, Makoto doesn't like the idea of limiting the number of proper studio albums due to the high prices that dedicated fans often pay to eventually hear them.

"I don't really like making 'rare' records, as I would prefer that more people can find and hear our music. Unfortunately, we usually can only release our music though small labels and some of our records are out of print now. I don't like people having to pay a lot of money to buy our records on eBay and other auction sites, so I'm always looking for labels who can reissue our old titles."

With music obviously dominating so much of his life, what would the 43-year-old Makoto do if he could no longer play it?

"I chose to be a musician because the only thing I can do is play music. As a member of society, I'm not really good at anything else. If I couldn't play music, I'd probably be a terrorist."

Hopefully the U.S. Department Of Homeland Security shares Makoto's sense of humour.

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. were in Montreal on Thursday and will play Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on Friday and Vancouver's Pat's Pub on April 4.

—Shawn Despres