Pitchfork

God bless AMT. You know, in all the commotion over sorting through the silo of Makoto Kawabata related releases last year, it seems we plum forgot to write about the best one. Nothing personal, you understand, but sweet heavens he put out a lot of stuff. He's still putting out a lot of stuff, not least of which are the "space opera" St. Captain Freak Out & The Magical Bamboo Request (which actually preceded this Univers Zen thing), Live in Japan, and the unnecessarily-three-parted Magical Power from Mars series. For most bands, issuing enough material for better than six LPs in a year would tip off their opportunist intentions to steal your money and valuable listening time. Hell, AMT probably are trying to steal your money-- but when the stash is as potent as even their least inspired hyper-cosmic overload, bang for the buck doesn't seem like a major issue.

For the discriminating consumer (i.e., the ones who can afford a maximum of three new AMT records per year), the question of how Univers Zen ou de Zéro à Zéro distinguishes itself amongst the band's other records becomes paramount. I should note that finding a place to start in their discography can be a mind-enslaving task in itself, especially when you take into account compilations and reissues, almost all of which contain different tracks than the original releases-- even Kawabata couldn't locate the cover of one of his records on the Acid Mothers website. All of that said, this record would be a very nice place for someone who had never heard the band to start, as well as being a watermark release for longtime fans. They didn't have to make it so easy, but they did.

The opener, "Electric Love Machine", takes its cue from the preceding LP, Electric Heavyland, in name and sound: The intro guitar figure and uptempo drum skiffle do little to prepare us for onslaught of distorted wah-wah mayhem and good old-fashioned psychedelic space noises that splash themselves all across the stereophonic plane. In the midst of this glorious mess, Cotton Casino's vocal threatens, for one verse, to bring the noise back down to earth and into more traditional hippie jam-band realms, but then Hiroshi Narazaki's (Les Rallizes Dénudés) guitar joins with Kawabata and turns my speakers into ramshackle fuzz boxes with what sounds like two or three different solos happening at once. And yet, despite the general chaos, when Casino's vocal returns, it's apparent that AMT are playing their version of pop (verse - CCCCHHHHOOOOORRRRRRUUUUUSSSSS - verse). But then the solos come back, and the space noises, and maybe I wasn't really onto something there with the pop thing. But I'm catching up!

"Ange Mecanique de Saturne" is a very pretty lullaby/hymn featuring Casino's entirely convincing childlike coo, and acoustic guitar played with more understated care than you'd think anyone involved in the previous tune would be capable of. Stepping back, the form is actually similar to "Love Machine", in its verse/really long solo/verse structure, but the execution is the key: Unlike most of their noisy peers, AMT have a way of bringing out aspects of psychedelia like wonder and naiveté which lend their more bombastic moments all the more impact.

The centerpiece of this album is the epic "Soleil de Cristal et Lune d'Argent", beginning as an ominous, almost regal cosmic march, led by strident piano, crashing drums, acoustic guitar, and Casino's disembodied, but persistent chant. AMT has often opted for lengthy excursions into the unknown, but have rarely sounded so mythic as they do on this piece. When the pace picks up for the middle solo section (see a pattern?), anyone with even a drop of Pagan blood will be up in arms with glee. Casino and a host of other singers return for a finale almost operatic in its grandeur, and if I didn't suspect that these guys would probably release 4-6 more in the next few months, I'd call it a masterpiece. On the other hand, I could just enjoy the moment; AMT are making out well enough doing so.