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Album Details

• Artist: Tsurubami
• Album: Gekkyukekkaichi
• Label: Strange Attractors
• Year of Release: 2003
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: jparker on 2003-09-30

The wallet-drainingly prolific Acid Mothers Temple collective has spawned another permutation in Tsurubami, comprised of head acidhead Kawabata Makoto on guitar, fellow templar Higashi Hiroshi on bass, and one Emi Nobuku on drums (the demure-looking woman pictured on the insert amidst the bearded longhairs). Some AMT releases are noisy and impenetrable to all but the most die-hard fans, but with this CD, the name of the album is more difficult than the content. (Pronounced 'geck-kyu-keck-ka-each-ee' if my intro Japanese serves.) Not that the content is by any means lightweight. The album has two long songs, the 24-minute Gekkyukekkaichi (go on, say it again) and the 37-minute Seiitenrinengi (don't even try). The first track opens with a flurry of skittering drums and cymbal amidst phasing and reverb, a seamless meld of free jazz and freakout - freak jazz? - thrusting the listener headfirst into involvement. It's instantly hypnotic. Things calm down around the five-minute mark, when a snakey bass starts creeping around the house, and you're not sure whether to welcome it or not. It lurches off after a few minutes, as if the now-throbbing swells of guitar scared it away. There's no set time signature, but the swelling and drums maintain a steady pace overall. It's the dynamics of the individual instruments, and the understatedly simple riffs, that create tension and build potential. Balanced evenly between a sense of lurking evil and guarded hope, it's like a scary movie you can't wait to tell your friends about. The second track is a different animal - and it is a positively living, breathing thing. Fluttering guitar chords thrum in and out, in and out, while the bass circulates bloodlike, and cymbals splash like neurons. After eight minutes the beast awakens, pacing, menacing, eventually gnashing its guitar-solo teeth, devouring its prey with yowls of feedback, until, at 23 minutes in, it's sated, and breathes normally again, but with more strength and fearsome pride. This is the sound of three talents in sync, an improvisation to be marveled at. Gekkyukekkaichi captures the potential of the Acid Mothers Temple collective so seductively, building effortlessly and masterfully to such sublime moments of freak-jazz, that it's both an effective introduction to the world of AMT and a high point of their output.

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