Acid Mothers Temple leader Makoto Kawabata joins Scottish minimalist Richard Youngs for this somber and meditative collection. Kawabata contributes finely picked, crisp, and shimmering guitar, while Youngs lays down a groundwork of organ or autoharp. Of the five tracks, all untitled, only two have lyrics. The leadoff track is the most traditionally song-oriented, with Youngs repeating the refrain “There’s so much beauty now” while Kawabata’s bright and jangling acoustic guitar weaves a hypnotic tapestry. Elsewhere, long drones of autoharp and organ swirl about with sampled, wordless voices and Makoto’s almost British folk-sounding guitar work (often recalling Bert Jansch or even Richard Thompson), making the album seem almost like one extended piece of music. While this collaboration is a worthy addition to the catalog of both musicians, it will surely appeal more to fans of Richard Youngs’ minimalism over fans of Kawabata’s speed-fueled psychedelic freakouts via Acid Mothers Temple. – Jason Nickey
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