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he I like this part from the Eclipsed interview:
Q: "what can we expect from the Unicorn live?"
Bent: "It'll be hard as nails. Like King Crimson in their hardest phase. These gigs will be special and unforgettable. I'm this arrogant to announce that!"
:MPD:
a remark about the Mutiny/Changes inspiration: once more the band's perfect musical understanding is revealed. It's the only good moment on that Yes record and they pick it and make something great with it.
Quote:Besides this isn´t a Motorpsycho record, it´s a Motorpsycho & Ståle Storløkken record.Here´s to the next Motorpsycho record [:cheers:]
true. more respect (or blame) to him. :mrgreen:
I can't understand why music is considered prog and fancypancy artsy in a negative way as soon as there are other instruments than drums and guitars used. There's a riff played on a violin instead on a guitar and some people go nuts (for good and bad, though
).The main reason why Motorpsycho are still together is their evolving nature. I'm pretty sure there won't be a Blissard 2.
Quote:on plattentests.de it is record of the week: http://plattentests.de/rezi.php?show=9117nice review but something's plain wrong, translated for non-germans: the reviewer thinks the beginning sounds worringly like Jethro Tull in 1982 and it announces therefore a double album of failure but he is then relieved soon after.
Maybe he refers to their 1982 song "watching me watching you" with its somewhat similar, stuttering and alarming intro. But I find that song to be simply amazing and Tull in 1982 were still quite great. They got bad 5 years later.
I find it a bit weird that lyrically the story ends downbeat but the last two songs are rather energetic upbeat. Something like "taifun" might have fit better or did I get the story wrong…
Anyway, I also like to join some here in stating that this is no way a jazzed out departure. This is all Motorpsycho. There's been tons more jazz in the band about 11 years ago. And the parts that rock out here are simply their most hair raising skin peeling blasts ever. Mutiny! What the F is going on in there? With headphones on I nearly got a seizure. And that's bloody awesome!
Be
Quote:@supernaut: "Year Zero wipes the floor with Vortex Surfer" – I consider this blasphemy and am quite ready to put on my explosive belt to blow the unfaithfulls to hell!you'n'me at sunrise! outside! pick yr weapon!
What I wanted to point out in that posting there is that the band has moved on. YZ shows that VS wasn't the pinnacle of emotional immersion and there sure will be new MP songs in the future that will top YZ. Also I kinda heard VS too many times…
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I think mr nelson refers to jazz when he talks generally about structureless music beyond the verse/chorus formula. As in jazz = dissonant weird shit.
Which is kind of hard to understand coming from a prog lover, though.Well it's sad if the band doesn't do it for you anymore because they don't repeat themselves. I'm listening to Timmy right now and this will always be dear in my heart but if the band would have kept doing albums just like that one up till now, then I'd probably stopped listening to them and would only occasionally dig out the Timmy for ol'times sake.
yeah, i think there's no need to discuss the quality of the band's output over the years. they just differ greatly in styles and i just happen to love 96% of it. just saying they lost it here or that phase there was better is non-understandable to me.
btw old prog masterpieces: no one ever mentions THICK AS A BRICK and A PASSION PLAY by jethro tull. now that's some big cinema as we say in german. only one 40mins song on each album, though A Passion Play has this interlude here (shown live during the break when they played the whole record):
so these pieces are drenched with lots of sillyness and that's what makes them truly great. prog is only bad when it's dead serious. but when funny, then it's allright with me.
I'll go a bit with BronYrAur but have to disagree with some.
Yes, a "Masterpiece" it is not. But that's simply because it's the band doing what they always did only in a new clothing, that big bit more shine and gloss and extravaganza as ever. So one should not dismiss it as not being the masterpiece everyone else is telling it is, but should rather listen to it as the piece of work it simply is.
About our beloved band playing their game: Yes it's true that there is self-indulgence in the band. And they do recycle riffs and ideas from all over 50 years of music history. They always did that, since the earliest of their days. But come on, that's the point of being in a band! As an artist you have to do what you want. If you do not, then it has no value! Freedom of art and such! Only narrow minded naysayers can disagree with that and call it pretentious and self important (and whatnot while sitting in the office job 9-5 for their own 50 years). This cockyness is what makes Motorpsycho reach out and boldly go… you know the rest. And damn, I love them for exactly this reason. I don't care if anyone ever did that album before. As I said in the other topic, the Unicorn might not have been very outstanding in the early 70ties, but that's a benevolent comment towards the music of the time and not a criticism of the Unicorn. The Wall – which I deeply respect – now that is a pretentious and self important record compared to The Silly Reason Defying Unicorn. Tales From Topographic Ocean is a pretentious journey into shamefully abbreviated simplified Hindi myths which Mr Anderson himself doesn't understand himself (or thought his audience won't so he simplified it) and the music is waaaaay too stretched out in tedious lengths. These are fine examples of adolescent self estimation gone wild. The Wall and the earlier DSOTM show how Water's work later benefitted from the artist's own ageing (though the pre-Wall Animals is Water's best work as a writer and conceptualist at least in his Floyd era). So what do you mean it's too late for a 43 year old guy to create a masterpiece (nevermind if the Unicorn actually is one or not)? How does age, experience and learning get in the way with that? I suppose you are very young, then?
I also must strongly disagree with the statement, the band's contribution to music ended with Trust Us:
In the 90ties they made outstanding great music. But it wasn't any more new than what they did later. Demon Box was a bold mixture of everything they liked with no obvious concept. This of course made it such a fresh and rewarding listen. But there's nothing NEW there to the music except for its uncompromised attitude in the making and the presentation. Same goes for Timmy, Dameons and Trust Us. The volume and the boldness and the music's quality are overwhelming, but if we're speaking NEW and want to critise the current Motorpsycho, then we must honestly state, that they never did anything new and unique. They simply did it louder, crazier, softer, bolder, weirder and mostly better than their contemporaries and their own idols. What about that other topic, where about 9765987580756 different artists and albums are listed as influences?
So LLM was the first real departure of and therefore really a new or at least alternative contribution to the contemporary music scene. And thanks for that! In a time where any half baked combo with beard and acoustic guitars and some alibi lowfi electronic beeps yawning about simple life in a wooden shed in the mountains over chords that good old Neil chewed out a lifetime ago got considered to be the next GENIUS band, they threw a 20+mins indiespaceheavyrocker opus with the most far out melodies and riffing ever known to mankind at us. Year Zero wipes the floor with Vortex Surfer in terms of drama and intensity (especially the live versions) and the Sunship and the Alchemyst… oh dear Jesus, just listen to the Kill Devil Hills / Alchemyst Combo on Intrepid Skronk. THAT's some contribution to music!
And then to top it off, this Unicorn madness. Yes it's been done before, yes it's self indulgent but most of all it's bold and funny and – most importantly – very very passionate. And if that doesn't make it valuable, then I don't know what does. That's no reason to like it, of course, but respect is due. At least for the fact that someone still does this crazy shit.
Oh well I'm not short in words here myself :mrgreen: but the album's silly title should make clear it's not to be taken too seriously.
The brilliance of the 90ties Motorpsycho is a matter of taste as well. Those records aren't any more brillant as the Unicorn or HMF per se. It's what we grew up with and what we're gotten used to when we were young. LLM for me is the artistic highpoint of the 00 years and definitely up par with Timmy and Trust Us.
What if they did the Unicorn right after Trust Us instead of the Cake and Timothy would be the all new record in 2012? Which ones would be percepted as the brillant and "classic Motorpsycho" and lukewarm soso albums? Timeline is a tricky fella.
Not that I want to go all mental about it. But for me this is generally a very interesting and sensitive issue: the perception and demands of the "consumer" towards art and artists (not only in Motorpsycho matters).
Remember the Child of the Future vinyl only debate. When people felt actually betrayed by the band and got even angry because they didn't get a digital version? Stuff like that makes me curious about the underlying trains of thoughts and motivations. So I might disgress (or deviate? dunno the correct word here) now and then.
There's no offense and anyone can like what (s)he wants. I wasn't that convinced of some material on Heavy Metal Fruit and some Allman Beach Brotherboys stuff on Let Them Eat Phanerothyme. But I welcomed it as their desire to grow and reach out and the overall creativity of the band. It's your train of thought that lost its way in my opinion. Going jazz is a sign of being old? What??? So the jazzers were all born sixty? And also don't forget, Motorpsycho did jazz in 1995 and now rocks out hard on the Unicorn in 2012.
But the weirdest thing was saying, the band lost its way and creativity because they don't keep repeating a formula they worked with at first. It's silly of the listener to tell the artist to stick to a formula they invented. Like "we pay for your career so you better do as we want!". It's the artist choice and not the consumer's, who never had any say in the band's original perception of itself in the first place per natural default anyway.
Funny you mention Metallica playing with an Orchestra. Because that's the obvious thing to mention and that is exactly what the Unicorn is not! Just like Roadwork 2 is not an exercise in jazzrockfusion. It's music beyond boundaries with no formula at all for the curious. Metallica (or others) with Orchestra simply rearrange their music for strings and then rock out to it. That's neither original nor fresh or barrier breaking.
A sign of getting old (in the artist AND the listener, mind) is being stuck in the same stuff when one was 20 and having no ability and/or intention to move on. Saying the Ramones for example never got old because they played the same 3 chords 30 years later is just plain wrong.
@boomer
it's the sailor's yarn and Kim's artwork that made me think of Moers. The band of course cites other, more classic, references in the liner notes, but yeah, I can't help it… :mrgreen:
have fun in Asia.
The album is not an easy listen and not an instant woawoawoaowoa! But that's not its intention. It's an open invitation to a rather unfamiliar listening world.
Anyone mentioned the outstanding singing yet? Since there's been the odd complaint now and then through the years, it should be pointed out strongly. On this one it's one of the most amazing ingredients. Very elaborated, very much care went into it. Oh Proteus – A Prayer has my favourite vocals. And the lamenting sighs on La Lethe? Worn down and sick and starving men rowing and rowing towards whatever horror awaits them.
Anyone seen Valhalla Rising btw?
Quote:hoping for ballet dancers in Opera show []ha yes, absolutely.
Quote:Bent really is a great bass player. So underated. Just listen to his playing in 'The Hollow Lands'.Oh yes. He's my bass hero actually anyway.
