Picacyu*Makoto is the meeting of minds between Kawabata Makoto (most famous for his leadership of the legendary Acid Mothers Temple), and Afrirampo's Pikacyu. Needless to say, it's a pretty bizarre affair, a psychedelic phreaq-out of the highest order.
Its arrival heralded by a call that sounds like the Muppets' 'Pigs in Space', it takes no time at all for this record to get weird, with 'OM Marijana' building a whorl of cavernous vocal drones. It's nothing like the psych-pop / prog of 'Birth Star' that follows hot on its spectral heels and proceeds to swirl around for almost ten minutes. Their very own 'Silver Machine' with some vocal pitch-shifting to rival Butthole Surfers at their barmiest, it makes for quite a trip
Predictable it isn't: wonderfully wacky and weird it is, from start to finish, bubbling with the kind of acid-fried brain-bending that Gong made their trademark. Joujouka collides with more drones and some hypnotic heavyweight percussion on 'OM Marijana FU Pt 2' and the pair are off in their own parallel universe again by the time they float into the epic 'Back to our House Over the Rainbow'.
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If the fact that this album is "the story about the cosmic shaman Pikacyu vs the master of the darkness Makoto ... including the full of love from the universe!" isn't especially obvious from listening to it (although they do duel it out on the frenzied space-rocker 'Wild Rise') it isn't really an issue. Either way, it's certainly cosmic and far out - not to mention highly inventive and, for the most part, extremely enjoyable.
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