Mani Neumeier and Kawabata Makoto – Samurai Blues – Bureau B – BB71 - ***

Kawabata Makoto's bands – Musica Transonic, Mainliner, Acid Mothers Temple – have a cannibalistic relationship with the underground's first flowering, regurgitating exaggerated forms of psychedelia, hard rock and proto-punk.
Here he teams with a genuine first generation innovator, the percussionist Mani Neumeier of the Seventies krautrockers Guru Guru, a kind of free jazz Stooges.
On five spontaneous compositions, ranging between three and twenty minutes, Neumeier plugs all available space with clattering splashback, forcing Makoto out of his curatorial comfort zone, his guitar playing here more reminiscent of the spiky improviser Derek Bailey than any of the long-haired legends he usually channels.

(3/4/11)