Browse by Artist: MOTORPSYCHO

Artist:	MOTORPSYCHO
Title:	Timothy's Monster
Label:	RUNE GRAMMOFON (NORWAY)
Format:	4CD BOX
Price:	$34.00
Catalog #:	RACD 104CD

Deluxe 4CD reissue of Timothy's Monster, originally released in late '94, is a certified classic, considered by many the best Motorpsycho album and often listed as the best Norwegian rock album in most significant listings since its release. Coming only a year after their dark and monumental Demon Box, this is a lighter, more adventurous, spacious and varied offering showing them blossoming into the band you have known and loved ever since, always on the move; forward, sideways, upwards, backwards. Spread over four CDs, you get the original album, the first version of the album that never got to be released and a very decent selection of rarities, outtakes and previously-unreleased tracks. Not only that, the package itself is nothing short of excellent, with its newly-designed box, cardboard sleeves, poster and 24-page booklet with extensive liner notes and anecdotes, priceless photos and notes about the recordings. This is simply a treasure trove for even the moderate Motorpsycho fan, if there is such a thing.

Artist:	MOTORPSYCHO
Title:	Little Lucid Moments
Label:	RUNE GRAMMOFON (NORWAY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RCD 2073CD

Motorpsycho was founded in 1989 in Trondheim, Norway's third biggest city, when mainstays Bent Sæther (bass, vocals) and Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan (guitar, vocals) were joined by drummer Kjell Runar "Killer" Jenssen. The first album, Lobotomizer, was released in 1991 after which Killer quit and Håkon Gebhardt took over the drums for many years to come. Gebhardt left in 2005 before the recording of Black Hole/Blank Canvas where Bent and Snah did most of the drumming themselves. With Little Lucid Moments they have a new, permanent drummer. Kenneth Kapstad is also a member of Animal Apha and Monolitich and has played with Dadafon, Gåte, Cucumber and Soundtank. Helge Sten, aka Deathprod, is back as a co-producer of Lucid Little Moments, and Kim Hiorthøy also returns to design the album sleeve. With 1993's Demon Box, Motorpsycho were already laying down the blueprint for much of the stoner psychedelia that would spawn a number of bands many years later. Since then, and several albums later, they have developed their personal style to sometimes include delicate use of brass, strings and other instrumentation, even flirting with pop structures and shorter songs, but never abandoning the original spirit of Motorpsycho and the long classic epics like "Demon Box," "The Wheel," "The Golden Core," "Un Chien D'Espace," "Vortex Surfer" and "Radiator Freak." With four long, energetic and evolving tracks ranging from 11 to 21 minutes, Little Lucid Moments is in every way what many hardcore fans will consider to be classic Motorpsycho in full flight. The album was recorded by Helge Sten and mixed by Jørgen Træen (Jaga Jazzist, Sondre Lerche). Mastered by U.S. mastering guru, Bob Katz.

Artist:	MOTORPSYCHO
Title:	Heavy Metal Fruit
Label:	RUNE GRAMMOFON (NORWAY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RCD 2093CD

This is the third full-length release from Norway's Motorpsycho on the Rune Grammofon label. It's extraordinary when a band 20 years into their career are able to deliver a string of three great albums in under two years, like Motorpsycho have done with Little Lucid Moments (RCD 2073CD/RLP 3073LP), Child Of The Future (RLP 2088LP) and now Heavy Metal Fruit. This record is co-produced by Kåre Vestrheim, the prominent Norwegian producer known from his work with Marit Larsen, Hanne Hukkelberg, Shining and others, and rumor has it that he's had more influence on the finished result than other producers before him. It's a varied and dynamic album and it's fair to say that it encompasses all the well-known aspects that have made Motorpsycho an institution in Norwegian music. We get metal, classic rock, Moogs, mellotrons, prog, psychedelia and jazzy freakouts before it all ends with the 20-minute long, majestic "Gullible's Travails," an obvious candidate to become the finest piece of music they have ever committed to record. There are guest appearances from the above-mentioned singer Hanne Hukkelberg and ace ECM trumpeter Mathias Eick on loan from Jaga Jazzist. Motorpsycho was founded in 1989 in Trondheim, Norway's third biggest city, when mainstays Bent Sæther (bass, vocals) and Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan (guitar, vocals) were joined by drummer Kjell Runar "Killer" Jenssen. The first album, Lobotomizer, was released in 1991 after which Killer quit and Håkon Gebhardt took over the drums for many years to come. Gebhardt left in 2005 before the recording of Black Hole/Blank Canvas where Bent and Snah did most of the drumming themselves. With Little Lucid Moments in 2008, Kenneth Kapstad was recruited as the new drummer and permanent member. Kim Hiorthøy is once again responsible for the artwork.

Artist:	MOTORPSYCHO
Title:	Roadwork Vol. 4: Intrepid Skronk
Label:	RUNE GRAMMOFON (NORWAY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RCD 2110CD

This is the latest installment in Motorpsycho's ongoing series of live documents, Roadwork. It was recorded across Europe over a three-year period spanning 2008-2010, and is the first live record released featuring the Snah/Bent/Kenneth line-up of the band. As finding a complete show fit for release proved difficult, and modern technology makes it real easy to fake a chronology that would work well from a listener's point of view, Roadwork Vol. 4: Intrepid Skronk is a collection of moments from the last several tours Motorpsycho's undertaken since Kenneth Kapstad joined on drums in 2007, and features material from all phases of their career. The previous installment in this series, Vol 3.: The Four Norsemen Of The Apocalypse, released as part of the Haircuts DVD in 2007, was a recording of the Snah/Bent/Geb/Baard line-up of the band recorded at the Paradiso in Amsterdam in 2003. It documented a band disintegrating from ceaseless touring and ever-increasing differences of ambition: flaming out, but still bravely trying to -- and in parts actually managing to -- connect with the muse. Let's just say the tension is tangible. This is a different cup of tea. This is a living, breathing muscle-car of a rock band in full flight, stretching the limits of their imaginations (and sometimes the patience of their audience!) by going someplace new as often as possible -- creating a new collective identity for themselves and reimagining the material in the process. The focus of the two volumes -- and the series as a whole -- is the same though: the improvising rock band. The versions of the songs contained herein all have one thing in common: they are all really different from the studio incarnations of themselves. "All Is Loneliness," an acoustic five minute hymn in its original state on Demon Box (1993), is here an 18-minute electric behemoth slouching towards ...eh, Haarlem (?) to be born anew. The somewhat stilted orchestral psych version of "Landslide" from the 2002 Phanerothyme album has become something altogether more organic and jazzy here, and "Arnie Hassle"'s kozmic kayaking escapades from Heavy Metal Fruit (RCD 2093CD/RLP 3093LP) had grown into epic proportions by the time it hit Leipzig in the summer of 2010. It's this kind of reinvention that is the focus of everything going on here, and although the adrenalin wins out in places and the kinetic energy the boys amass sometimes becomes almost too much for them to handle, the power trio's antics make for an exciting listen. Riding the tiger indeed, the band sometimes tethers on the brink of fusion, jazz-rock, and other forms, but mostly manages to rein in the beast on the right side of taste. Mostly.

Artist:	MOTORPSYCHO
Title:	Roadwork Vol. 4: Intrepid Skronk
Label:	RUNE GRAMMOFON (NORWAY)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$26.50
Catalog #:	RLP 3110LP

Gatefold 2LP version. This is the latest installment in Motorpsycho's ongoing series of live documents, Roadwork. It was recorded across Europe over a three-year period spanning 2008-2010, and is the first live record released featuring the Snah/Bent/Kenneth line-up of the band. As finding a complete show fit for release proved difficult, and modern technology makes it real easy to fake a chronology that would work well from a listener's point of view, Roadwork Vol. 4: Intrepid Skronk is a collection of moments from the last several tours Motorpsycho's undertaken since Kenneth Kapstad joined on drums in 2007, and features material from all phases of their career. The previous installment in this series, Vol 3.: The Four Norsemen Of The Apocalypse, released as part of the Haircuts DVD in 2007, was a recording of the Snah/Bent/Geb/Baard line-up of the band recorded at the Paradiso in Amsterdam in 2003. It documented a band disintegrating from ceaseless touring and ever-increasing differences of ambition: flaming out, but still bravely trying to -- and in parts actually managing to -- connect with the muse. Let's just say the tension is tangible. This is a different cup of tea. This is a living, breathing muscle-car of a rock band in full flight, stretching the limits of their imaginations (and sometimes the patience of their audience!) by going someplace new as often as possible -- creating a new collective identity for themselves and reimagining the material in the process. The focus of the two volumes -- and the series as a whole -- is the same though: the improvising rock band. The versions of the songs contained herein all have one thing in common: they are all really different from the studio incarnations of themselves. "All Is Loneliness," an acoustic five minute hymn in its original state on Demon Box (1993), is here an 18-minute electric behemoth slouching towards ...eh, Haarlem (?) to be born anew. The somewhat stilted orchestral psych version of "Landslide" from the 2002 Phanerothyme album has become something altogether more organic and jazzy here, and "Arnie Hassle"'s kozmic kayaking escapades from Heavy Metal Fruit (RCD 2093CD/RLP 3093LP) had grown into epic proportions by the time it hit Leipzig in the summer of 2010. It's this kind of reinvention that is the focus of everything going on here, and although the adrenalin wins out in places and the kinetic energy the boys amass sometimes becomes almost too much for them to handle, the power trio's antics make for an exciting listen. Riding the tiger indeed, the band sometimes tethers on the brink of fusion, jazz-rock, and other forms, but mostly manages to rein in the beast on the right side of taste. Mostly.

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