Album Details

• Artist: Acid Mothers Temple
• Album: Son Of Bitches Brew
• Label: Important
• Year of Release: 2012
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2012-07-23

In almost every genre and in every country, the period from 1969-1971 was arguably the most rich and inspired era for music. Certainly Makoto Kawabata has. Acid Mothers Temple have over the years mined that period not only for its music, but also for it look, myth and song titles. Clearly, by title alone, their new "Son of a Bitches Brew" continues that fixation. The feeling you get from these seven songs is that it is really just one long impossibly long jam, spliced and edited into individual tracks. That would make sense, though, since that is the way Miles Davis did it in the 70s with his lethal electric bands.

Thus, the synth driven laconic fits and starts of the title track forms the basis for "Helen Buddha: Miss Condom X," a muted almost disembodied horn (courtesy of bassist Tsuyama Atsushi) serves as the foundation for this sci-fi epic, complete with alternating left-right speaker channel ambience. This sets the tone for much of the rest of the tracks, which only get louder and noisier, until the finale, "Sweet Peanut Vs. Macedonian Beauty," in the guitar makes a brief but memorable addition to the foundational loop.

Acid Mothers Temple is driven by whatever Makoto Kawabata pulls from his endless bag of musical ideas. On "Son of a Bitches Brew" much of the heroics belong to Higashi Hiroshi; this set harkens back to early 70s fusion but is based throughout on Hiroshi's trippy, cool running synth.

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