Have You Seen the Other Side of the Sky

well? HAVE you seen the other side of the sky? i assume acid mothers temple believes they can show you, if you haven't...i might be inclined to agree with that assessment

I forgot I even had this Acid Mothers Temple CD. I'm sure that I got it when it first came out in early 2006, around the time that I got to see Kawabata Makoto and crew play live for the second time in a local dive. Tracks here that I simply could not get enough of were the fifteen-minute mind-blowing (to say the very least) "Asimo's Naked Breakfast: Rice And Shrine" {sort of maybe like an improvised krautrock session} from way back when, the laid-back "Interplanetary Love" (with some very cool sound effects) and the finale to all this beloved Japanese noise space-rock mayhem - the thirty-minute chaotic tripping "The Tales Of Solar Sail - "Dark Stars In The Dazzling Sky". I'm sure they'd played this tune's second half when I saw them that 2nd time around. An absolute must-have.

The problem with Acid Mothers Temple is that their live shows are amazing. It is extremely difficult to recapture the same sound and atmosphere on a CD. This album is an even further departure because several of the tracks run around acoustic guitar rather than electric and singing (which is unusual for AMT). However, this makes it one of their most beautiful and accessible records to date (in the vein of Mantra, La Novia, and Troubadours). However, the last track, Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky, is signature AMT and should be blasted through car stereos all the way up. Buy this and enjoy the fact that you are listening to some of the most unique music being put out today.

This is the best album they have put out in a while.Varied. Nice. Can't pull myself away from it.Pick it up.That Starless and Black Sabbath thing was too heavy.The Cosmic Inferno was good...(IAO Chant is sweet...)But it's sweet to have the Melting Back.Sweet album.

Like the other reviewer, I bought this C.D for the 30 minute version of 'Dark Stars In The Dazzling Sky'. I'd heard this track on Youtube a few years ago (when I was using Youtube to go through as much of AMT's back catalogue as possible, in order to decide which C.Ds to buy. This track sounded great, and therefore I decided to get this C.D, as soon as one turned up at a reasonable price, which eventually it did recently.Unfortunately through, great as that final track is (& more on that shortly), the rest of the tracks are disappointing.The first track - 'Attack From Planet Hattifatteners' (6.15) starts with some short wave radio, then goes into a few minutes of 'freakout', with stops, starts, breakdowns & wild drumming, all topped with crazy flute. It sounds like they're doing a parody of free jazz. The track ends with a few minutes of scraping, distant vocals, a kazoo type noise, and a lot of glockenspeil, a bit like some of the more abstract / freeform segments on early Mothers Of Invention albums.The second track 'Buy The Moon Of Jupiter' (3.27) is a gentle song of sorts, based around acoustic guitar & flute. Tsuyama sings, in what sounds like a made-up language (though who knows ?), sounding a bit like the singer in Can. There's something very 'European' sounding about tihis - it really makes me think of Faust or Can. However, whilst there's the germ of a reasonable song here, it's ruined by a lot of unnecessary clutter - a keyboard that sounds slightly off key, and a lot of synth splashes & whooshes (the same ones that you hear on almost every AMT track) which sound very out of place here.The third track - 'Asimo's Naked Breakfast : Rice & Shrine' (15.01) is messy. It sounds like segments from several different jams (based around acoustic guitar, flute & synth) pasted together, then some overdubbed vocals added. This might not be how it was actually recorded, but having been in a band who used to record all our jams, then paste all the best bits together on tape, it very much sounds like that to me. Ther are two layers of 'wacky' vocals, that are just annoying - Tsuyama obviously singing whatever comes into his head (including snatches of 'Hotel California'). Unfortunately, the track is mixed in such a way that these vocals just dominate too much - instead of sitting 'in' the track, it's more like they overwhelm the music, and the music becomes background. Sometimes, you just want to yell 'Shuttup, so I can hear the music !'.This track really does just sound like a jam. There are some segments that have potential - some nice interplay between acoustic guitar, flute & floaty keyboards.. However, most bands wouldn't release this. Instead, they would take the elements that worked, and develop them into 'proper' tracks (e.g - 'That riff you were playing half way through - that worked. Let's build a track using that as a basis'). Having been in a band that was entirely based around improvisation, I know that judicious editing is the key to a good release. You can't just put out every piece of music you record, as no matter how 'tight' you are as a unit, there's going to be some things you record which aren't up to scratch. The fourth track - 'I Wanna Be Your Bicycle Saddle' (1.37) is your typical AMT noise / rock freakout.The fifth track - 'Interplanetary Love' (5.54) has lovely acoustic guitar picking & sitar, and some folk style vocals ('Hum Di Diddly Do, Nonny Nonn No' etc). The vocals are not bad, but I can't help feeling this track would have better as just an instrumental. Also, once again we get the trademark AMT synth splashes & whooshes. I sometimes think AMT's synth player is a bit lost as to what to do on some tracks - he only really has one sound, & whilst it sounds great on psychedelic rockers & spacerock tracks, it can often sound really unnecessary & obtrusive on other kinds of tracks.Finally we have 'Dark Stars In The Dazzling Sky'. This IS a great track. However, having said that, in the time between hearing this on Youtube (& buying thIs C.D), I bought myself a copy of AMT's 'Astrogasm From The Inner Space' C.D.. The version on that is significantly better. It's 12 minutes shorter, but you're getting nothing here that you wouldn't get on the 'Astrogasm' version. The only two things that make up the difference in length here are (one) The 'Noise Freakout' sections on this version go on a lot longer (two) This version starts with a few minutes of harmonium drone & flute. This is potentially a good intro, but instead of blending the track into this intro, it just seems to stop & then go into a jump cut (which is quite jarring). Otherwise, the arrangement is more or less the same. The 'Astrogasm' version is a lot tighter arrangement, & has the added bonus of the gorgeous eastern stringed instrument that starts the riff, plus Cotton Casino's fantastic vocals, & an overall sharper & cleaner mix & production. The vocals on this are pretty good (with some great high-pitched warbling at the start), but I just think Cotton Csino does this a lot better. This sounds more like how you would hear this at an AMT concert (in their five piece electric guitar variation) & is missing all the lovely acoustic eastern instruments (that give variety of texture) from the 'Astrogasm' version.As I've said in other AMT reviews, there's an annoying tendency for Amazon customers to give EVERY Acid Mothers Temple release a five star review (& given that the band have released so many albums, there;s no way that everything they release can be worthy of five stars). The other reviewer even admitted that half this album is of 'variable quality', but still gave it five stars !I hope that readers can trust that I'm a huge AMT fan, but am not just going to give every album they release a five star rating, That's not helpful.Buy this album if you're an AMT completist, or want every version of 'Dark Stars In The Dazzling Sky'. However, if you want the definitive version of 'Dark Stars', buy 'Astrogasm From The Inner Space' (which is probably the best AMT album).