TSURUBAMI – GEKKYUKEKKAICHI
REBEL POWERS – NOT ONE STAR WILL STAND THE NIGHT
Kawabata Makoto is a one-man Neptunes, a Timbaland of rock, in his own sphere. There’s a style, a sound, an approach that is his but not solely his, something that stretches out from his own work to everyone else he works with, and he works with about everybody he encounters and likes. And so he collaborates and records and records and collaborates and etc. Another day, another label, a new release. And so. Tsurubami is a trio growing out of an older group that has him, regular Acid Mothers sidekick Higashi Hiroshi and drummer Emi Nobuko doing whatever they want whenever they want; this is the fourth or fifth album (or maybe more) and though it’s all three of them working it’s mostly Kawabata finding that warm/flowing/epic sound on his guitar and letting things get queasy or violent when he wants. It matches the album art pretty well, a blue skyscape above the clouds, hitting heights in an exultant fashion. Rebel Powers is Kawabata, other AMT folks and this particular one-off group’s star guest, one David Keenan, Telstar Ponies leader and current Wire editor. It was recorded back in 1998 and probably was sitting around in Kawabata’s archive until he figured that it couldn’t hurt to put it out, but maybe his first impulse was the best — it’s good but not great, though I suppose Keenan does well enough providing some rhythm guitar while Kawabata creates That Tone as much as he wants to while Cotton Casino occasionally wails in the distance. Still, it’s not quite what it should be, but for every Aaliyah there’s a Justin (though some might reverse that equation).