MOTORPSYCHO – Neigh!!
Art: NFGS0124
Label: Det Nordenfjeldske Grammofonselskab
Release date: 23.08.2024
Format: LP / Digital
There are songs that makes friends with anyone and do great at parties, doling out compliments left, right and center. And then there are those songs that just don’t seem to fit in, songs that knock over glasses and makes awkward comments to the host as they stubbornly refuse to adapt and adjust to whatever larger setting you needed them to work in; these are songs that seemingly insist on remaining outside your control no matter how many stylistic or production tricks you try to pull.
Usually, for a band such songs eventually fall by the wayside, are left behind or butchered for parts a few years later. But sometimes quite a few of them show up at the door, at the same time, unruly & ready to shake things up a bit. Sometimes there is trouble.
These are the songs that makes up Neigh!!* Not merely a companion piece to last year’s Yay!, not a collection of B-sides or simply leftovers from that same period, but a reaction, a party for those not invited to parties, consisting of troubled, sometimes weirdly clothed outcasts that refused to go away and instead languidly found their place in the post-plague world while the tunes from Yay! were being pampered and sing-along’ed by band and fans alike.
So, then, it’s not a Nay! These songs care not that the band didn’t notice their potential at first. They know who they are, what their purpose is and what they’re capable of. They proudly wear their ‘lo-fi/ no-fi’ and ‘recorded in rehearsal room/home studio’ as embroidered patches on jackets you only now realize are pretty cool. Granted, they had a tough upbringing, some of them come from broken homes and they learned the hard way to ‘Turn a frown upside down’, but here they are, together + strong!
Neigh!! is an album of ‘songs that won’t fit on an album’ – the non-concept of all concepts – a home for strays and runaways perhaps, but more importantly a bunch of tunes Motorpsycho are finally happy with, that found their purpose and now have a home: songs that the band are proud to finally being able to present to the world.
Dr. Th. Kneipp
MOTORPSYCHO – Neigh!!
01. Psycholab (Sæther)
Hans Magnus Ryan: lead vocals, violin, organs
Bent Sæther: background vocals, guitars, bass, drums, mellotron
02. Return To Sanity (Sæther)
Hans Magnus Ryan: lead and background vocals
Bent Sæther: background vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, percussion, synthesizers,
mellotron
03. This Is Your Captain (Ryan/Sæther)
Hans Magnus Ryan: vocals, lead guitar
Bent Sæther: bass, guitars, percussion, synthesizer, mellotron, organ
Tomas Järmyr: drums
04. All My Life (I Love You) (Spence)
Bent Sæther: guitar, bass, drums, percussion, lead and background vocals
Hans Magnus Ryan: background vocals
Reine Fiske: lead guitar
05: Edgar’s Bathtub (Ryan/Sæther)
Hans Magnus Ryan: synthesizer, mellotron
Bent Sæther: synthesizer, mellotron
06. Elysium, Soon (Sæther)
Bent Sæther: lead & background vocals, electric & acoustic guitars,
bass, mellotron, synthesizer, percussion
Hans Magnus Ryan: lead & background vocals, lead guitar, gong
Tomas Järmyr: drums
07. Revenants (Sæther)
Bent Sæther: lead vocals, acoustic guitars, mellotron, synthesizer
Hans Magnus Ryan: background vocals, lead guitar
08. Crownee Says (Ryan/Sæther)
Hans Magnus Ryan: lead & background vocals
Bent Sæther: drums, background vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, bass, mellotron,
synthesizer, percussion
09. Condor (Ryan/Sæther)
Bent Sæther: rhythm guitar, bass, mellotron, percussion
Hans Magnus Ryan: lead guitars, drums
The Songs
Psycholab is a party tune. At the edge of the precipe, sometimes that’s all you can do. Ask Caligula.
Return To Sanity is a prayer. You can tell by the multitude of voices. Open our eyes, who-/whatever you might be if you’re out there. Will get fooled again.
This Is Your Captain is a report from the bridge of the Mothership. I am outside the narrative, I observe,
I watch, I store and I save. And sometimes I despair.
All My Life (I Love You) is a more-or-less forgotten song by the genius that was Skip Spence. It’s unabashed positivity is to die for. A mantra for modern man.
Edgar’s Bathtub is an extract from one of our theatre music sessions, just to keep you up to date on that front, and to set the stage for –>
Elysium, Soon. They chose to go, not because it was easy, but because it was hard. We just seem to stay here in our sandbox. Someone show us some real ambition, please? This navelgazing is distasteful.
Revenants is a lament for the hope we at some point in life might be lucky enough to feel. You tie yourself to the mast and pray. Misguided or righteous, only history can tell, but it was more real than anything.
The Crownee Says he’s really really fed up with this whole pandemic thing inbetween toots on his glam rock oboe, while –>
The Condor just soars above the chatter, majestically floating on the breeze. We would kill for such calm presence and certainty in existence. Serenity now.