Mani Neumeier & Kawabata Makoto: Samurai Blues

Guru Guru drummer Mani Neumeier and Acid Mothers Temple guitarist Kawabata Makoto have worked in concert with one another since 2006, when the two parties paired up with Acid Mothers bassist Tsuyama Atsushi and combined the powers of both esteemed outfits to form Acid Mothers Guru Guru. This megaton monolith of sound traveled across the United States on a 10-day tour that was met with a wild sense of enthusiasm from avant rock fans across the country, and followed up on the momentum with more tours of Japan that were each received with an equal sense of inspired awe. Eventually, Neumeier and Makoto began playing out as a duo, finding themselves achieving a zone of comfort with which they could take their partnership to the next level of the creative process. It was only a matter of time before the need to enter the studio to document this mighty fusion of German krautrock and Far East heavy psychedelia became an inevitability. And soon enough, Samurai Blues was born — a blistering, five-song session of freewheeling improvisation that sees the combined forces of Mani’s sticks and Kawbata’s strings delivering upon the promise of their explosive live sets with an acidic performance of mind-bending mayhem.