Chances are, one tenth of a person out of every ten in the street--one in a hundred, to the layman--has tinnitus, a condition in which the sufferer hears a ringing or pulsing sound not caused by any external stimulus. Most often tinnitus drives people up the wall, and, consequently, to seek professional medical or psychological assistance. The ringing in his ears drove Makoto Kawabata of ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE SOUL COLLECTIVE to his garage. There was the auspicious beginning?with a handful of handmade instruments and a borrowed synth and some friends?he began the making of the kind of music he'd always wanted to hear but had never been able to find.

Acid Mothers Temple freak out. They freak out improvisationally. Their improvised freak-outs are psychedelic rock combined with electronic sounds. They are not in the same vein as KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN or PIERRE SHAEFFER; nor are they to be found in the one that is inhabited by prog, hard, or krautrock greats such as AMON DUUL, DEEP PURPLE, or GENESIS. It might be said that they are in the artery that flows alongside those veins, albeit in the opposite direction. Nor is freaking out all they do: their music also combines such elements as the drones found in Indian classical music, and the traditional throat singing of the Occitan region of France.

In 2004 AMT & TMPUFO dissolved, worn down by the incessant touring but Makoto instantly reincarnated the Soul Collective is a new ensemble: ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE COSMIC INFERNO. The group's first LP, a fifty-five minute one-track tribute to the late Pierre Moerlen of Gong (1952-2005), "IAO Chant From the Cosmic Inferno," will be proudly released by Ace Fu Records in September 2005.