Makoto Kawabata and Richard Youngs

Acid Mothers Temple leader Makoto Kawabata joins Scottish minimalist Richard Youngs for this somber and meditative collection. Kawabata contributes finely picked, crisp, and shimmering guitar, while Youngs lays down a groundwork of organ or autoharp. Of the five tracks, all untitled, only two have lyrics. The leadoff track is the most traditionally song-oriented, with Youngs repeating the refrain "There's so much beauty now" while Kawabata's bright and jangling acoustic guitar weaves a hypnotic tapestry. Elsewhere, long drones of autoharp and organ swirl about with sampled, wordless voices and Makoto's almost British folk-sounding guitar work (often recalling Bert Jansch or even Richard Thompson), making the album seem almost like one extended piece of music. While this collaboration is a worthy addition to the catalog of both musicians, it will surely appeal more to fans of Richard Youngs' minimalism over fans of Kawabata's speed-fueled psychedelic freakouts via Acid Mothers Temple.