Drinking The Lemonade is an ongoing exploration of Acid Mothers Temples most iconic song- Pink Lady Lemonade. This is post #1 in the series, Levitation Sessions (2021)

From it’s birth in the 1996/7 demos to the present day, it’s been performed and recorded countless times. There’s seemingly endless live and studio versions (Acid Mothers Temple often blurs the boundaries between the two) and multiple albums bear the name. Pink Lady Lemonade is the definitive Acid Mothers Temple song.

Our ongoing retrospective starts not at the beginning, nor with any of the recordings fans commonly describe as definitive. This record/video was recorded and streamed worldwide in 2021 during the height of the pandemic-induced concert streaming era. It’s one of many great records produced as part of the Levitation Sessions live record series, presented by the Texas based festival of the same name. It features the same AMT lineup that has resumed touring since the end of the pandemic (save the bassist Wolf, who departs after this set.) The band is on their 2023 North American tour as I write this. Find the dates for that tour on their socials or on this blog.

The AMT Levitation Session is a great dive into Pink Lady Lemonade. In this set, they play two different versions. After an excellent first two tracks, song number three is a 14 minute “Disco Pink Lady Lemonade,” followed by “Black Summer Song” (one of two tracks absent on the single lp vinyl release) and then a 10 minute “Pink Lady Lemonade Coda.” A light speed 14 minute Cometary Orbital Drive closes the set.

“Disco Pink Lady Lemonade” starts with a rhythm section focused disco trance that’s an approach well honed on their recent world tour. While more of a full band jam from the start than some of those drum and bass solos version, when the guitars roar to life it’s as if they’re propelled out of the depths of Nani and Wolfs jam.

“Pink Lady Lemonade (Coda)” is a tremendous space rock journey where no moment is wasted. Glissando guitar and sweeping drone open the track and instantly re-establish the bands intense psychedelic energy. From there it’s free fall into a classic AMT freak out. To my ears Makotos intense improvisations like this aren’t about sense. They’re about sensation, prog rock for pleasure seekers. The tracks explosive crescendo gives way to an gentle come down and some words of hope from the speed guru himself.

Don’t miss this great live psych record/video with not one but TWO particularly intense and memorable Pink Lady Lemonades. You can’t have too much of a good thing when you’re persuing the outer limits of psychedelic sound.