Concert Review: Acid Mothers Temple, ST 37, May 1, The Garrison

009

Over the course of their 20 year career, Japanese psych masters Acid Mothers Temple have taken on many names – Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO, Acid Mothers Afrirampo, Acid Mothers Gong, and a few other permutations. With this in mind, there’s no way of knowing exactly what form their set will take on any given night, but one thing is certain – it’ll be an enjoyable ride.

The band played with full intensity right out of the gate as they provided the soundtrack to a full on cosmic freakout. Sonically, they ran the gamut from Sabbathy heavy riffing to a more chilled out, mellow psychedelia, more often than not culminating in a wonderfully noisy way. And on this evening, they played particularly hard, with new drummer Satoshima Nani actually breaking his bass drum near the end of their set. As Satoshima worked to rearrange his drumkit so that the show could go on, guitarist Kawabata Makoto leaned into his microphone. “We got a very young drummer again,” he said, introducing their latest member to the audience while also offering up an explanation as to why he demolished his drums so easily.

Opening for Acid Mothers Temple on their current tour were Austin space rock outfit ST 37, who although they’ve been around since 1987, were playing just their second ever Canadian show. Though their sound is a little more based in traditional songwriting than the headliners, ST 37 also branched out into a lot of exploratory sonic passages and a had a raw and raucous energy to their performance (despite the fact that they didn’t really move around too much onstage). Highlights of their set included a cover of Nikki Sudden’s “Breaking Lines” and their set closer, “Discorporate.” As singer Scott Telles explained, discorporate means “to leave your body” and all things considered, it seems like a fitting soundtrack for an out of body experience.

Posted on by Paul in Concerts