Listening to this CD through the bathroom wall, the shower is humming, and over the splish splash of a depressed Monday morning abolution Kawabato Makato is spinning webs in my hifi and by the time I return semi-concious and mumbling an elaborate web of sound has spun itself between my speakers and immediately takes hold of the base of my spine. Monday morning has suddenly turned cosmic! How the Japanese-freak-rock did that happen? 

This is a solo release from the long-haired, totally ROCK visionary Kawabato Makoto. Kawabato has been releasing music in Japan since the shogun era most probably and is best known for his work with his Acid Mothers Temple collective. Now, these guys are the coolest rocknroll band in the world and the sooner people realise the sooner we can get on with living our lives in peace and harmony and such things. This is a fact. Check out La Novia or Paraphysical Freakout Mu! for further proof. This solo album is like the Mothers more mellow moments and is basically a drone for, like, 60 minutes! But the genius of Kawabata was never found in his brevity. This guy takes his time but like a river or some such equally ancient and expansive phenomena he always reaches his desination. And in the case of I’m In Your Inner Most that destination is a sea of feedback, but before that sassy analogs bubble and antiquated tambura’s drone and under/overpinning it all is a something that just kind of buzzes at a middle frequency. Strangely and irrationally it’s this brrrr that holds you. It’s a whrrrr that, whrrr it not there, would render the piece just another ambient daydream. Very nice and all that but no head spinner. The eeeeer that starts the record continues throughout and by some magic use of frequency and modulation it gently drills into the back of your neck and keeps you uprite throughout, allowing the more melodic and pure-sweet elements of the music to float around you as you sit/lie/fly with head held high. It’s no pop record but it has a real addictive quality to it. I like to have it on when I’m in other rooms to the one it’s on in. It creates the impression of your abode having a womb — buzzing and gyrating in the centre of your domestic universe. Then when you actually enter that womb it’s all the more magical a place. A real web of purest sound.

But enough cosmic conjecture! My copy is signed too! Anyway bottom line is it’s a lovely record by a hugely talented and tuned-correct fella. Not one for three-minuters but if you have the time and inclination let it slip into your life like an ice cream from a friend on a sunny day.

NB
The tao of AMT is a true one. The first album of there’s I heard was sent appro-nowt by the very kind and generous Annexus Quam which was a buzz especially when I discovered he’s a poet and sent it from Spain! The second is the limited edition Ziggy Sitardust mini-album with the beautiful 3d spaceship cover. And the third a signed gift from my band mates — many thanks to them! So everyone is special which of course adds to the strange positive presence of this band. Love em!