Tsurubami

Acid Mothers Temple ringmaster Kawabata Makoto claims he channels his music from a divine entity. If you’ve heard any of his back catalog, the admission seems plausible. In Tsurubami, the Japanese guitarist teams with drummer Emi Nobuko (Makoto’s ex-bandmate in Tenkyo No To) and bassist and fellow AMT member Higashi Hiroshi to strafe the heavens with a free-noise rock din that summons and surpasses Sonny Sharrock. The 23-minute title track (one of two on the disc) establishes Tsurubami’s intense M.O.: Makoto’s ascending, reverbed helix of guitar billows while Nobuko thrashes a jazzy chaos. But Makoto obliterates all in his path, his shattered chords oscillating into hall-of-mirrors disorientation. It’s as if he’s harnessing a supernova in his pickups. We lose all moorings with reality and enter Tsurubami’s turbulent dimension of sonic wrath, a realm of almost unendurable alienness.