magical power mako's "blue dot"

when i was going to college for a minute back in the mid-'70s, there was a fella i knew there who had all the same equipment as jimi hendrix and could make all the same noises as jimi without playing a lick of music. once he even burned a marshall cabinet in the basement room where we usedta rehearse. (he also had an upholstered stratocaster, but that's another story.) that's what magical power mako's cd blue dot reminds me of: it's like electric ladyland, minus the songs. and i mean that in a _good_ way: after all, what use have japanese people for blues or r&b, even kan mikami, who calls his music "japanese blues" but sounds more in the neighborhood some sake-swilling geezer like my grandfather roaring his discontent than anything even remotely connected with african-american slave culcha. yeah, imagine if "1983...(a merman i should turn to be)"'s space jammage were extended to double elpee length. mako's drummer careens through space in sub-mitch mitchell fashion while the bassplayer burbles away as cluelessly as noel redding and mako himself creates an echoplexed feedback apocalypse better 'n the one randy hansen did for coppola's do lung bridge scene. best track: "mako drum," on which an echo-driven repetition morphs into a groove. this is lsd (or whatever)-addled silliness of the first order. plus, the animal on the cover looks like a squeezil. originally released on japanese marquee in 1995, reished stateside on atavistic.