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Translation into English from German by deepl:
Motorpsycho
The All Is One
Highlights: N.O.X. II: Ouroboros (Strange Loop) // Dreams Of Fancy
Genre: Progrock // Psychedelic // Jazz
Sounds Like: Dungen // Jaga Jazzist // Black Mountain
By Benjamin Köhler
3/5
Okay, after 30 years of band history and over 20 albums, what do you still want to write about Motorpsycho? Maybe we start with the hard facts about the new album: "The All Is One" is the final part of an unofficial trilogy called "Gullvåg" after "The Tower" and "The Crucible". The new record has a playing time of 84 minutes and the central part is the 45(!)-minute monumental piece "N.O.X.", consisting of five tracks. All songs were recorded last year between September and November, which is hard to grasp given the sheer length and complexity.
All in all, it sounds like a heavy chunk and is one, too – not surprisingly. And that's exactly the crux of the latest Motorpsycho output. You reckon with overflowing and intricate material and then you get exactly that. This may be satisfying for the fan, but it also eliminates the surprise effect. That sounds incredibly paradoxical in view of an epic jam like "N.O.X.". After all, something unforeseen happens here every minute. But that's exactly the point: The unexpected has become expectable. In this respect, Motorpsycho have outmaneuvered themselves a bit. It's a bit unfair to criticize the Norwegians like this, after all the band is still more creatively on the road after all these years than 99% of the rest of the music scene and furthermore has a work ethic that is second to none. Therefore "The All Is One" of course deserves a sober album review.
"N.O.X." is the central star of the record and Motorpsycho really do have everything in their extensive repertoire: Freejazz passages, epic sound surfaces, strings, synthesizers in full ecstasy, even choirs join in this (controlled?) madness. It is perhaps the piece of the discography so far which comes closest to a live experience of Motorpsycho. The song monolith is framed by the remaining tracks of the record.
The title track is the beginning and at the same time almost the blueprint of a typical song of the trio from Trondheim – a catchy basic melody, which is decorated with all kinds of bridges and solos. Somewhat more reduced are "The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus)" and "The Magpie" in the following. Two almost straight rock songs. But they can also write Motorpsycho. If they want. With the soft acoustic ballad "Delusion (The Reign Of Humbug)", it then goes over to the heavyweight with the three letters.
Anyone who still has some air left after that can look forward to the strongest song on the album, "Dreams Of Fancy". Hans Magnus Ryan unpacks here once again an inimitable riff, which is wonderfully underlined by strings. The final track "Like Chrome" is similarly successful, which leads "The All Is One" to a worthy end. But what does end mean with Motorpsycho? Probably the band is already sitting in the studio again at this moment and is preparing at least the next three records. Maybe they will manage to surprise a little bit more then again.
Translation into english from dutch by deepl:
Motorpsycho – The All Is One
Format: CD – LP – Digital / Label: Stickman Records – Rune Grammophon
Release: 2020
Text: Paul Op den Kamp
As of today (August 28th) the new album of Motorpsycho is in the store. It was actually the intention to release the album in the spring. But also for the Norwegian band Covid-19 meant a total revolution in planning. A few more months but now 'The All Is One' can be shown to the world.
Somewhere ironic how much the musical content fits the messy days of today. The blistering whirlpool of rock, jazz and post-rock as the imagination for the unrest and resistance that lives in society. Precisely at the moment when there is more resistance against the various measures that governments have proclaimed to curb the virus, an album is the musical interpretation.
Or as the band writes on their website: 'These songs have no thematic through-line, but they all sort of fit into the conceptual continuity that our last few albums seem to have been a part of. They all seem to have dealt with living in a much more polarized society than before, and with the loss of faith in democracy and in civic institutions that the countries of the world all seem to be going through'.
For anyone who just wants to disappear into music for a while in order to enjoy some thematic content, it's great to get lost. In the different layers you can see various influences. The Gothic of The Cure, Joy Division of Siouxsie and The Banshees. The psychedelic confusion of Pink Floyd. In one way or another, the way the songs always fan out to a different atmosphere also reminds of Mike Oldfield.
Intentional or unintentional, the album accompanies these days of virus, election and confusion. In any case, it is a very strong soundtrack. One of those albums that already deserves a place in the year-end lists.
Translated into english from dutch by deepl:
August 25, 2020 by Luke Peerdeman
Where are today's bands venturing into imperfect, boisterous works that make their way into the unknown? Does every artist prefer the small to the big? Is all music today screened with perfect practice? No, fortunately the answer is yes. There is still that Norwegian name that once again comes up with a grand, searching record.
After all, if a band has delivered explorative music over the past three decades, it is Motorpsycho. Although the guys on their debut album mainly made metal, genres like prog, post and psychedelic rock have become an increasingly important part of the sound. The fusion of these elements almost resembles alchemy. It is therefore not surprising that this proto-scientific theory turns out to be a thematic inspiration. In short, alchemy assumes that elements can mutate into other (purer) elements and in a similar way Motorpsycho combines the exuberance of the 70's and the rawness of the 90's to an ultimate adventurousness. After all, floating, pushing arrangements are given several minutes to sound increasingly immense. With some turbulence we tear ourselves to a point beyond the horizon.
It should come as no surprise that the heart of this album is formed by a long epic: the over forty minutes long N.O.X. This time, however, the song is more psychedelic and hypnotic of nature, which resembles a rougher Hawkwind. Moreover, the five-part epic seems to have an almost fractal structure: they are circles, within circles, within circles. In this way, Circles Around The Sun opens with a spinning bass melody in which the tones become more and more out of tune. This melody eventually transforms into a drunken diagonal march. On Ouroboros (Strange Loop) we again find a rhythmic whirlpool, in which the melodies are almost funky this time. The conclusion is stately and ecstatic. After a relatively short transition we arrive at the 15 minute climax: Night Of Pan. The tuning is initially restrained – almost whispering even – after which a Nils Frahm-like organ part slumbers in and the bass guitar continues the tension unabated. Guitars growl dangerously. Then a delightful, infinitely touching build-up begins. More and more we lose ourselves in the unknown. Tempestuous, restless tones make the listener yearn for salvation. Although the band, out of barbarism, throws open the song with jazzy keyboards, the bass keeps tightening the thumbscrews. The return to Circles Around The Sun emphasises that the immense build-up has only resulted in a circle around the audio church. No problem! When the music is so good, I start again with love.
Besides this epic, the band also offers some pleasant short(er) compositions. Opening song The All Is One is a pleasant doormat for this record. A nice rousing rhythm and a summery arrangement grab the attention. The screeching guitars and explosive drums provide excitement and on top of that, the Mellotron fans out beautifully. The Magpie then has a hushed beginning that flows into folky guitar plucking. A frivolous melody, however, accelerates the pace, which gives the warm tones a spice and makes the song feel blissful. Finally, Dreams Of Fancy contains pastoral Mellotron parts that move dreamily. Here, too, the tempo goes up, although the build-up meanders, making this composition an appealing resting point.
All in all, "The All is One" contains raw yet exuberant music. Compared to its predecessors, this record is less heavy. The rhythms are looser, the arrangements sunnier and the sounds more psychedelic. The album is nevertheless a logical successor to The "Crucible" and "The Tower". On the one hand this is positive, but on the other hand the surprise seems to go off a bit. However, this little critique doesn't hurt much, as these musicians consistently deliver quality and the music remains like a house.
Like good alchemists, these gentlemen still turn heavy metals into gold. Although the somewhat rough style seems to have lost its shine, this does not detract from the fact that every song convinces. Pleasant melodies and exuberant arrangements search the limelight again. The result may be called one of the highlights of 2020.
Review by Massimo Quarti from Impatto Sonoro, translated by Google Translate
The Motorpsycho train never slows down and within three years it completes the GullvÃ¥g trilogy in which our favorite Scandinavian band uses artist HÃ¥kon GullvÃ¥g for the visual part and this time, the cover was created by the artist expressively for the 'album. After “The Tower†and “The Crucibleâ€, respectively of 2017 and 2019, we come to the third chapter with “The All Is One†conceived in two sessions together with members of the Jaga Jazzist and some of the band's favorite Norwegian musicians.
After this orthodox introduction, let's face it: we will no longer have albums like "Timothy's" Monster "or" Trust Us ", but the beauty of following Motorspycho is just that and much more; I will try to explain it in this short article.
Progressive rock has never really touched my strings, apart from a few Mothers albums, but it's dated stuff, in which references to the years in which it was produced are too evident, with all the admiration for the absolute genius of Zappa . But what differs with Motorpsycho is that Norwegians are one of those rare bands that bring together hardened listeners of different genres, they manage to do the same miracle that Ramones or Motörhead did, in that case, with punks and metalheads, here we agree between alternative and prog rock and more. And they manage, from some albums to this part, to produce pieces that will be identical in thirty years or more as they manage to blend that alt rock vein with which they grew up and some progressive inspirations of the past without being obsolete even in a riff.
Motorpsycho themselves say so: in the end you will do what you want with this record, it depends on how far you want to go, because "The All Is One" takes its cue from esoteric readings, is full of mythological references, and ideas imaginative from the ancient schools of Tarot and you immediately feel in the title track the desire to differentiate earth and sky, humanity from bestiality, The All Is One, however, is not the highest point of creativity of the album in fact it is a little down in the dumps , let's say that the beginning of the album starts a little weak. Apart from that, talking about a single piece and giving it a judgment is hard, given the countless nuances, in fact it picks up again in the middle and has memorable melodic peaks as well as Magnus' solo right there to those, perhaps a little canonical, 3/4 from the end, where you expect it; but Sæther's (melodic) draft, worthy of the largest and most hypnotic sonic evolution remaining in the earthly times of a song-form, we find it in The Magpie, perhaps the most enjoyable piece of the album preceded by The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy) that seems to come out of the unforgettable “Black Hole / Black Canvasâ€.
Delusion (The Reign Of Humbug), a light and dreamy ballad, finally introduces us to the long central section of suites entitled N.O.X. (I, II, III, IV and V), I don't know how long it took me to listen to them all, maybe a whole morning, maybe two days, in short, I can tell you that during that experience time stopped. The Motorpsycho got rid of the cumbersome presence that prevents the flow of events, which was that of cataloging, without leading to the improbable but always keeping in mind a human point of view, which looks to infinity and sees an expression of profound intelligence. , of infinite sweetness and, even if we are unable to get to the bottom of the initiatory meanings of "The All is One", it deserves our veneration, because it is something very distant from the usual disc usable by us listeners of rock, punk rock, garage, experimental (seriously?), pop, indie etc.
"The All Is One" is a work that has culture behind it, the authentic one, the one for which an artist is not enough to know how to play and have a particular sensitivity and write down a piece, here it is about art with a wealth of knowledge huge, years of study, of reading, of lives devoted to the search for sound. Sæther and Magnus are to be considered "auctor", they are like philosophers, poets and classical composers, that is, they perform an example and testimony function, their music is at the origin, and "produces, increases, integrates, expands, strengthens , completes the insufficient will or personality of another. Provided that "the other" has the strength to learn since I, for example, like all of you, am part of a fast culture, which does not want the explanation of an auctor when listening to a CD but something lighter, ours The problem is that we want to talk about music without knowing it, without knowing what an improvisation is (does the title Ascension remind you of something?) or what music is, then having the arrogance to say the exact opposite. And so we end up creating a "fake culture". We call it "counterculture" but it is not against a shit, it is simply fake, it does not have the shadow of a serious study or research behind it, it is supported by people who are not legitimized to make it grow as true and it does not have the balls to evolve . For this reason then at 40 we move on to something else. With "The All Is One" we have the opportunity to fortify ourselves, to improve ourselves.
Neolyd – "If you'll buy only one guitar album this year you won't have to wait any longer."
Translation into english from dutch by deepl:
Motorpsycho – The All Is One
Written by Dypfrys on 28-08-2020 at 18:50.
Motorpsycho has album twenty-two on offer. The All Is One is the last part of the "Gullvåg Trilogy", which includes The Tower and The Crucible. Motorpsycho is an unpredictable band, that's the only predictable one. The psychedelic fusion extends over a wide musical landscape. The album comes out as a double LP/CD. Considering the playing time of 84 minutes, that's no wonder. Actually, the album consists of two separate albums, one of which is placed in the middle of the other in the playlist. The middle part is called N.O.X., which is Latin for night.
I'm quite a fan of The Death Defying Unicorn myself, but we don't hear much of the heavy scandipsych/stoner on that album here. On the outer part of the album I mainly hear Blissard, with quite witty songs in a psychedelic atmosphere. Effectiveness comes first, and in that you also hear more modern work like The Motorpnakotic Fragments. Calm, direct songs like Dreams of Fancy and The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy), which seem to flirt with country singer-songwriters and a band like The Eagles, turn out to be songs full of character. The vocals are well known by now, but sometimes hang a bit towards the somewhat irritating nasal American accent. When the country takes the upper hand, I think that's an advantage. On Delusion (The Reign of Humbug) you hear a lot of consonants (the 's' and 't'), which because of the condenser microphone emphasizes a bit too much. The minimal magical tones are reminiscent of Kayak, especially in combination with the cautious vocals. A lot of 70's rock in the style of Blue Öyster Cult can also be heard, and the almost spiritual guitar licks and the cymbal-rich drumming make things float. The delicacy and vocal/fuzzy outbursts shoot past each other. The All is One, The Magpie and Like Chrome represent the heavier side of this piece.
In the middle of this album, full of songs with the consolidated Motorpsycho sound, N.O.X. is shining. An (almost) instrumental Zappian piece full of jazzy jams and spacing fusion. Motorpsycho is known for his experimentalism, but this is a bridge further. Lars Horntveth (bandleader of JagaJazzist) and Ola Kverberg, a jazz violinist, have drummed up to come and help. For a one-off performance these musicians and Motorpsycho met each other. The collaboration was so good that it would come to this album. For almost forty minutes the band jams the stars of heaven. N.O.X. III Ascension is a highlight with spacey post-rock, a runaway saxophone amidst resonating harmonics and minimal ride-attacks. The initial spacey keyboard bleep behind it completes the atmosphere. The placement in the tracklist is magnificent, just after the festive schizophrenic N.O.X. II – Ouroboros (Strange Loop), and then all of a sudden that hovering peace… What a transition, and what an atmosphere! Awesome. Also the eclectic and dynamic N.O.X. IV Night of Pan knows how to fascinate. Reine Fiske can still show up here, like he did before in 2013 and 2014, to touch the guitar. Here the music is ritual and religious, and always ends in nightly dreams/nightmares. Grab the echoing vocals and you've got the recipe for waking up bathed in sweat.
I won't do it to you to dissect all the songs. That would be madness besides. It's 80 minutes asking to be played over and over again. For me personally the experimental N.O.X. middle piece was a very pleasant experience. The band reinvents itself with it. In a way which is very different, yet very individual. The other forty minutes have more the character of a focused album, that typically brings everything from Motorpsycho together. The song structures are more effective there. The result is that the songs are easier to grasp. Actually there are three parts to discover here: the heavy stoner work, the lighter country work, and the spacing jam work. All three times the band knows how to keep on captivating, with delicate string work and extraordinarily precise, sensitive drumming. That combination of fantastic instrument control, the variety and artistic freedom makes The All Is One yet another masterpiece.
Score:
85/100
Traslated with Google Translate:
The Motorpsycho train never slows down and within three years completes the GullvÃ¥g trilogy in which our favorite Scandinavian band uses artist HÃ¥kon GullvÃ¥g for the visual part and this time, the cover was created by the artist expressively for the 'album. After “The Tower†and “The Crucibleâ€, from 2017 and 2019 respectively, we come to the third chapter with “The All Is One†conceived in two sessions together with members of the Jaga Jazzist and some of the band's favorite Norwegian musicians.
After this orthodox introduction, let's face it: we will no longer have albums like "Timothy's" Monster "or" Trust Us ", but the beauty of following Motorspycho is just that and much more; I will try to explain it in this short article.
Progressive rock has never really touched my strings, apart from a few Mothers albums, but it's dated stuff, in which references to the years in which it was produced are too evident, with all the admiration for the absolute genius of Zappa . But what differs with Motorpsycho is that Norwegians are one of those rare bands that bring together hardened listeners of different genres, they manage to do the same miracle that Ramones or Motörhead did, in that case, with punks and metalheads, here we agree between alternative and prog rock and more. And they manage, from some albums now, to produce pieces that will be identical in thirty years or more as they manage to blend that alt rock vein with which they grew up and some progressive inspirations of the past without being obsolete even in a riff.
Motorpsycho themselves say so: in the end you will do what you want with this record, it depends on how far you want to go, because "The All Is One" takes its cue from esoteric readings, is full of mythological references, and ideas imaginative from the ancient schools of Tarot and you immediately feel in the title track the desire to differentiate earth and sky, humanity from bestiality, The All Is One, however, is not the highest point of creativity of the album in fact it is a little down in the dumps , let's say that the beginning of the album starts a little weak. Apart from that, talking about a single piece and giving it a judgment is hard, given the countless nuances, in fact it picks up again in the middle and has memorable melodic peaks as well as Magnus' solo right there to those, perhaps a little canonical, 3/4 from the end, where you expect it; but the (melodic) draft of Sæther, worthy of the largest and most hypnotic sonic evolution remaining in the earthly times of a song-form, we find it in The Magpie, perhaps the most enjoyable piece of the album preceded by The Same Old Rock (One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy) that seems to come out of the unforgettable “Black Hole / Black Canvasâ€.
Delusion (The Reign Of Humbug), a light and dreamy ballad, finally introduces us to the long central section of suites entitled N.O.X. (I, II, III, IV and V), I don't know how long it took me to listen to them all, maybe a whole morning, maybe two days, in short, I can tell you that during that experience time stopped. The Motorpsycho got rid of the cumbersome presence that prevents the flow of events, which was that of cataloging, without leading to the improbable but always keeping in mind a human point of view, which looks to infinity and sees an expression of profound intelligence. , of infinite sweetness and, even if we are unable to get to the bottom of the initiatory meanings of "The All is One", it deserves our veneration, because it is something very distant from the usual disc usable by us listeners of rock, punk rock, garage, experimental (seriously?), pop, indie etc.
"The All Is One" is a work that has culture behind it, the authentic one, the one for which an artist is not enough to know how to play and have a particular sensitivity and write down a piece, here it is about art with a wealth of knowledge huge, years of study, of reading, of lives devoted to the search for sound. Sæther and Magnus are to be considered "auctor", they are like philosophers, poets and classical composers, that is, they perform a function of example and testimony, their music is at the origin, and "produces, increases, integrates, expands, strengthens , completes the insufficient will or personality of another. Provided that "the other" has the strength to learn since I, for example, like all of you, am part of a fast culture, which does not want the explanation of an auctor when listening to a CD but something lighter, ours The problem is that we want to talk about music without knowing it, without knowing what an improvisation is (does the title Ascension remind you of something?) or what music is, then having the arrogance to say the exact opposite. And so we end up creating a "fake culture". We call it "counterculture" but it is not against a shit, it is simply fake, it does not have the shadow of a serious study or research behind it, it is supported by people who are not legitimized to make it grow as true and it does not have the balls to evolve . For this reason then at 40 we move on to something else. With "The All Is One" we have the opportunity to fortify ourselves, to improve ourselves.
So many raving reviews. Incredible.
short review in german
https://romaniacsmonster.blogspot.com/2020/08/n-o-x-circles-around-sun-pt-1.html
translated with google translate
N. O. X. (CIRCLES AROUND THE SUN PT 1) – MOTORPSYCHO
Not only the writing psychonaut has asked himself what kind of meaning his life has, what is it about the universe and all the rest. Other, bigger thinkers than him, had already dealt with it long before him, tried everything possible, finally built a supercomputer and fed it with the questions mentioned at the beginning. After seven and a half million years and a few squashed ones, it finally spat out the result in August 2020. The answer is "N. O. X. â€, lasts 42 minutes and simply explains everything.
Just one review on ProgArchives to date, but the album has a very healthy overall rating of 4.13, placing it in the ProgArchives top ten for 2020 albums so far.
The rating of 4.13 also places The All Is One second among all Motorpsycho studio albums. Seven MP albums have an overall rating of 4.00 or more.
The Death Defying Unicorn 4.18
The All Is One 4.13
In The Fishtank 4.12
Trust Us 4.08
Phanerothyme 4.03
Behind The Sun 4.00
The Tower 4.00
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