Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. – Dark Side of the Black Moon: What Planet Are We On? – Important Records [Album As Art #2]

If you ask me, it’s best to get to the point where Acid Mothers Temple — whether performing under the guise of the Mothers of Invasion, the Cosmic Inferno, the Afrirampo, the Pink Ladies’ Blues, and the Incredible Strange Band or, in this case, as the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. — cannot shock you with its psychedelic excesses.

Not with their Ghost-ian albums that jump from Point A to Point Z within a few seconds; not with their ridiculous deluge of new albums; not with their numerous side projects, tours, aliases and excessive eccentricity …

Yep, if you’re truly going to enjoy Acid Mothers Temple (or Kawabata Makoto‘s solo stuff) you’re going to have to tune in, tune out and set your sights to the heart of the sun, as it were. This is no problem for the droves who have already made AMT one of their most-cherished band acronyms/abbreviations — right behind Nnck and My Life With … — but for YOU, this might take some doin’.

First, make sure your tolerance for Noodling is at an all-time high. Noodling can take on many different forms (extended guitar/wammy/pitch-bending solos, acoustic nudging, recurring seismic blasts of noise, etc.), and Acid Mothers Temple are expert at wringing every last drop out of their out of their jam towels (yuck).

Next, ensure you are in a place where you can sit for extended lengths of time, especially if you splurged on the LP (what, you bought the CD? HAHAHA, loser); you don’t want to wake up from a space-rock coma with an aching back — your brain will already be ready to burst.

Finally, you’ll want to Take Drugs. Yes, these days reviewers tend to make constant mention of the fact that — though they write about the “lysergic,” “psychedelic” and/or “trippy” music — they don’t, themselves, take drugs. 

I’m here to say that that’s no kind of attitude to take into an Acid Mothers Temple exploration of space and time. I’m here to say that drugs are not only allowed during the listening of albums like Dark Side of the Black Moon, but encouraged. 

I’m here to say drugs are cool. There, I said it. Happy? Now DIVE INTO THIS PIT OF PSYCH-SLUDGE, -DRUDGE, -PUDGE and -CURMUDGE and don’t come up for air until you have half as many brain cells (and/or teeth) left. Be sure to e-mail me your stories …