Kawabata, Makoto

Kawabata, Makoto

Astro Love & Infinite Kisses

Vhf

Kawabata Makoto emerges from a period of relative quiet with his first widely available solo release in several years, the blockbuster Krautrock-flavored Astro Love & Infinite Kisses. This lovely and impressionistic record showcases the other side of Makoto’s outrageous works with Acid Mothers Temple. Taking cues from classics of the genre like Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra and Steve Hillage’s Rainbow Dome Musick, “Dos Nurages” is the album’s centerpiece, a 41-minute hypnotic epic, with echoplex’d guitar anchoring a stream of expertly done glissando. The title track is a darker drone in the tradition of Kawabata’s Inui series of releases for VHF. “Woman From Dream Island” closes the record with a thick buzz of tamboura overlaid with trippy backwards guitar, before giving way to a gentle, finger-picked acoustic coda.

Kawabata, Makoto

Inui 4

Vhf

INUI 4 is the fourth volume in Makoto Kawabata’s series of solo releases for VHF. While widely and rightly known for earsplitting Deep Purple-style guitar demolition with Acid Mother’s Temple, Gong, etc., Kawabata’s INUI works are highly personal and introspective, with lots of room given to cosmic atmosphere and acoustic instruments. INUI 4 is a single 68 minute track, a slow-building and evolving multi-layered swath of acoustic and electric guitars, electronics, and hurdy gurdy. The final 20 minutes feature prominent “glissando” guitar, à la Daevid Allen - a very fine sound to be lost in. Like the other INUI volumes, this includes great photos and design by Makoto and Sachiko Kawabata.

Kawabata, Makoto

Inui 1

Vhf

Long-planned reissue of Makoto Kawabata’s first solo LP, from way back in 2000 (or roughly 100 releases ago, in Kawabata terms). Originally released by the mighty SIWA label in a tiny, hand-printed edition of 300, this has long been the most sought-after Kawabata item, pretty much impossible to track down without a wallet full of eBay slush funds. The music, as on all the releases in Kawabata’s Inui series, is intensely personal and introspective, with long, softly focussed tracks featuring acoustic stringed instruments from around the globe (including violin, sarangi, oud, sitar, bouzouki, lyra, shou, and nei). French filmmaker, musician and longtime Acid Mothers Temple collaborator Audrey Ginestet lends her crystal voice to the album opener, “Shin.” This new, limited reissue is packaged in a fabulous multi-color, hand-screened mini-gatefold printed by Alan Sherry of SIWA.

Kawabata, Makoto

Inui 3

Vhf

***The third volume in an acclaimed series by the Acid Mothers Temple leader, INUI.3 focuses on Makoto Kawabata's highly personal brand of epic instrumental drone. Performing on bouzouki, sarangi, electric guitar, viola, and ECS-101, Kawabata emphasizes the gradual build of monumental sound structures. Running twelve minutes each, "Sui" and "Ken" are darkly spun tales, with wisps of sound keening over a distant backdrop. Recalling the Speed Guru's lovely 2001 collaboration with Richard Youngs, the 47-minute "Fuku" is based on a hypnotic arpeggio plucked out on the bouzouki over which Gong-style glissando guitar and other zonked sounds are carefully layered.  

Kawabata, Makoto

Inui 2

Vhf

***Inui 2 is the first widely available solo CD by this prolific Japanese guitarist/composer/bearded guru. Known primarily for his recent work with oddballs Acid Mothers Temple, Kawabata's career actually goes back to the late '70s and spans many styles, including solo guitar improv, electronics, folk, and, of course, the deranged acid mayhem associated with the PSF scene. Performed entirely solo on violin, kemenje, zurna, electronics, sarangi, taiko, gong, water, bouzouki, cello, vibes, organ, and sitar, the four tracks that make up Inui 2 are perfectly executed dream-music, equal parts delicately floating and heavily droning. There's also one all-too-short modal essay for bouzouki that is amazingly beautiful. After years of obscurity, there has been a recent avalanche of Acid Mothers and Kawabata releases, most of them of the impossibly limited variety, all of them snapped up by the internet and by real people, too