[Kid A]

@Netsrak: Thank you for posting this wonderful review. This is the way it must be done. Though I´m a SPON regular, I haven´t read it before.

I did a translation into english for all non-german readers:

It´s 10 PM in Berlin Mitte, an icy cold January night. It has been snowing and snowing the whole day. I´m in the car, it won´t start. Motorpsycho “Here Be Monsters”: I put in the CD and forget time and space.

“Sleepwalking”, a minimal piano tune, snow flakes are falling slowly on the windshield. Outside, a street lamp´s light is shining into my car like a small beam. The guitars of “Lacuna/Sunrise” are whimpering softly and after a few seconds it is back: the Motorpsycho-Bass, that´s driving me since 25 years through my life. The car´s speakers are rumbling and distorting, sugar-sweet guitar tunes accompanied by the bass, that has more thrust than the complete works of Motörhead, in addition the angel´s voices of Hans Magnus Ryan and Bent Saether: emotional, mesmeric, touching.

The song is fading seamlessly into the instrumental “Running with Scissors”. Like a lukewarm rain in late summer, while outside, the snow is covering almost the whole pane.

But then: I.M.S. The dreamy piano from “Sleepwalking” returns in a boisterous 7/8 clock and within the first moments it turns into a blizzard, as if you had opened a box of demons, calling you to trust them – and in between the piano offers you some cake.

“Spin, Spin, Spin” is a cover of Terry Callier and in old Motorpsycho tradition better than the original.

After this follows the reprise “Sleepwalking Again”, as if you have been given a strong sedative.

And then it is back, unexpected, this Motorpsycho moment: you hear a song and even after 25 years of band history, you fall in love with this music once again. The 18-minute-long “Big Black Dog” starts with acoustic guitars, Fender Rhodes, mellotron an Saether´s and Ryan´s Beach-Boys-Singing – and lets you glide through the universe, as if packed in giant cotton candy, before bass and guitar sheathe, wrap in with a monotonous, mesmerizing riff-loop and take you away into the void.

Seven songs in 50 minutes, the world is out of joints, this record can help to steady oneself for a moment. To feel understood, secure and safe.

The last few seconds of “Big Black Dog” are running, only acoustic guitars left, Saether and Ryan are singing: “Sunlight, please warm me, cold emptiness is out there in the fog. Sunlight, please save me, please keep me safe and stay.” Than the song is vanished. Gone.

In the meantime, the windshield is completely blown over by the snow and it is dark inside the car.

I´m alone again. A new record by Motorpsycho, a new life section.

Oliver Polak

(9.5/10)

[Kid A]

I must admit, I didn´t really like the Serpentine version. Too messy and not very catchy. Haven´t seen them so energetic in a long time. I was surprised how good On A Plate works live, compared to the studio version.

[Author]

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