Zoffy “Thou Shall Not Mess with Zoffy” [Acid Mothers Temple]

Thurston Hunger   8/25/2004   A Library

Acid knights of the mother temple, guitar god Makoto Kawabata
and madman-genius Atsushi Tsuyama turn psychedelic pranksters
with another Zoffy piece o’ musical taffy. Stretching the
limits of cover songs at the beginning and end, and digging
deep beneath the folk basement. Zoffy deliver ultra-tweaked
gypsy songs cloaked in reverb, humor, birdcalls. A heady
sonic homebrew, that is deceptively ramshackled. (Check
out the headphone tabla bounce on #10, it defies the lo-fi
nature of much of this.) Atsushi is just a radiant being.
All tracks might be covers for what I know, but the further
out the better…the opening/closing numbers pale in
comparison to the gaunt beauty of #2, or the hypnowheel
spin of #7 with crazed keening vocals. While the kids
may dig “Cookie Monster” vocals these days, I sure like
Atsushi’s “Grover” vox on #9. Meanwhile his phrasing on
that tabla-turner #10 sound like a sideways take on Pete
Seeger. With the ney nose-flute, and dueling bouzouki
action, how can you not love this? -Thurston Hunger
Seven seconds of abrupt silence at the end of #13