Acid Mothers Temple are a Japanese Genre-Busting Space Rock band formed in 1995 by guitarist and only constant member Kawabata Makoto. He formed the band with the intention of making "extreme trip music" influenced by Progressive Rock, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Krautrock. They have released over a hundred records since their formation. To make matters worse, the same name isn't even used for the same albums; As the above quote shows, they have released records as "Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.", "Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno", "Acid Mothers Temple SWR", and several others, kind of like what Silver Mt. Zion does (Though, unlike Silver Mt. Zion, they have reused these names for their albums, with "Melting Paraiso U.F.O. being most commonly used).
While they do switch up their sound occasionally, they're known for their long, noisy space rock jams with an extreme penchant for Epic Rocking (Some songs approach an hour) and referencing their influnces in the album or song titles. They have also done Lighter and Softer (though by no means shorter) folksy songs, and explored minimalism for their cover of Terry Riley's In C and the several related pieces on the same album.
They never got any mainstream success, but they have a large cult following and are frequently cited as one of the most unique bands of their time, getting mentioned in the same breath as several other Space Rock bands. Fans of Gong and Amon Düül II will find something to enjoy here.
Tropes related to Acid Mothers Temple
- Epic Rocking: It's telling that 20 minutes is normal for the group. Most of their songs lie between the 10-20 minute range, while a few push the 30 minute mark. "Anthem of the Space" is 43 minutes, about the length of a regular album (though it's still followed up with the 10-minute "Poppy Rock"). They have done two reworkings of Gong's "Master Builder", on of which, released on the album IAO Chant from the Cosmic Inferno, reaches 51 minutes. "Pink Lady Lemonade" is frequently rerecorded with a different length each time, with the most impressive being "Pink Lady Lemonade ~ You're from Inner Space", which hits 66:11 and is split up into 4 parts, which is uncommon for most of their songs of this nature (though Part 1 is still impressive at nearly 32 minutes). The Penultimate Galactic Bordello Also the World You Made is the most extreme example; It's 4 discs, around 4 hours long, and has only four songs. Yeah. The third track, "What's Your Name?", is probably the longest track they've recorded at an hour and 10 minutes.
- Genre Mashup: They mix Psychedelic Rock, Space Rock, Noise Rock, Progressive Rock, Krautrock, Jazz, and occasionally Folk Rock together is one psychedelic blend, and it kicks ass.
- Shout-Out: They do it so much it's actually hard to tell what's an example and what isn't. Most likely examples include Electric Heavyland (A play on Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, with a cover inspired by King Crimson's Live Album Earthbound), Acid Motherly Love (Another play, this time on the Frank Zappa song "Motherly Love"), Starless and Bible Black Sabbath (A portmanteau of King Crimson album Starless and Bible Black and Black Sabbath's name), Son of a Bitches Brew (Self-explanatory), and In 0 to ∞ (A combination of Terry Riley's "In C" and the Gong album From Zero to Infinity). This is by no means a complete list, by the way. Feel free to add more examples if you'd like.
