Anyone who has ever witnessed Acid Mothers Temple live has more than likely heard them perform Pink Lady Lemonade. It’s a staple of their live sets and has been released in various forms over the years on of now out of print releases. It is offered here for the first time in double vinyl and single CD editions.

While Pink Lady Lemonade is a single piece of epic proportions, it comes off more like a very cohesive full-length recording, as the tune is broken down into four separate movements. The record’s first movement runs for about 30 minutes and introduces the album’s central motif, a mesmerizing and repetitive guitar riff. The track eventually dissolves into a particular jazzy section that has the band frantically freaking out somewhere between ragtime and Sun Ra. This jazz-inspired section ends rather abruptly after just under six minutes, yet it’s enough to radically alter the previous vibe and prepare oneself for the third movement.

The third segment marks the return of main riff being played in a very gentle manner with slight processing on Kawabata Makoto’s guitar and additional synth action from Higashi Hiroshi being panned in and out of the mix. The results are very intriguing and verge into psychoacoustic territory.

The effect of the layered sounds is reminiscent of that experienced when listening to the music of contemporary classical composer Luigi Nono, whose compositions created something entirely new out of manipulating taped recordings of vocalists and orchestras. Pink Lady Lemonade maintains the same heavy spiritual qualities that so much of the Acid Mothers output does, but the hippy elements are kept a little further at bay and instead replaced with an artier drone component. The effect of the cascading drone alongside the full band playing is both refreshing and strange, almost as if you were listening to two different pieces of music being performed simultaneously. For the remainder of the recording it’s the guitar heroics of Speed Guru, a.k.a. Kawabata Makoto, going head to head with Hiroshi’s droning synth madness. These occasionally subside here and there to allow some drum and bass flourishes to find a moment to compete for the listener’s attention. When all is said and done the journey of this album is one that is frantic yet calming at the same time, thanks to very gentle opening and closing to the recording.