MOTORPSYCHO? YAY!

In the winter of 2021, after almost a year of covid lockdowns, masks and fear of the plague, we Motorpsychos realized that most of our usual work routines were no longer applicable: no one could travel, people were stuck in their homes, cultural activities wound down everywhere, and options were increasingly limited for a working rock band: inertia and entropy loomed. 

As the months went by, the question arose: would we even survive this as a band?

What better to do then, than rearrange the rehersal room into a makeshfit studio, and record music that wouldn’t require fancy recording facilities, hi fidelity sound, or indeed much input from people outside the band to work? There wasn’t much else to do, so we burrowed down and went to work.

For almost two months, we recorded as many of the shorter, less opulently arranged, less improvisational, less progressive, and decidedly less epic song ideas we had accumulated over the previous few years as we could: acoustic guitars prevailed. So did hand percussion and congas, and we all sang mulitple harmonies to the best of our abilities, untill we – in March/April somewhere – realized we were going blind and deaf and couldn’t really tell if what we were doing was any good anymore. 

So we put it all aside for a few weeks, then revised the material, and lo and behold – had a revelation: all of a sudden we heard the music we’d done, and saw the potential album hidden within the mass of musical information and loose ideas we’d put down. 

Destilled, this was actually pretty good stuff: it coalesced and had a vibe – there was a throughline implied, and a cohesion in the best tunes that really worked. Not within the ususal modern Motorpsychodelic parameters perhaps, but still! 

We’d accidentally actually made something that was good: 

‘a morning album’ we thought, or a ‘spring album’ – an album’s worth of tunes so different in mood to our usual concoctions that it actually needed to become an album of its own, if nothing else for that very reason.   

Or? 

Full of insecurity and trepidation, we knew we needed help to figure this out, and decided to ask our very best friend in music, Mr Reine Fiske (Landberk, Dungen, the Amazing, Träd, Gräs och Stenar, Melody’s Echo Chamber, etc) if he agreed, and if so, if he wanted to produce and mix it. 

Well, long story short, he did.  

Given absolute carte blanche to do with the material as he wished, he jumped at it, recruiting his Amazing/Dungen colleague Fredrik Swahn to engineer and assist, and together they went to work. Adding, subtracting, editing and polishing: the work – of and on – took the better part of 18 months, but what emerged is pretty damn special. 

The ‘Stockholm sound’ is a thing in modern psych, and these guys are two of the major players and architects thereof. In the overdub- and mix process they enriched and expanded our home recorded efforts and shaped the resulting songs into a wonderful little psych album, as full of their textures and aestethics as of ours: intimate, friendly and inviting, but trippy and psychedelic at the same time. 

Our music was given a sweet Swedish psychedelic sheen, and it really suits it!

What emerged from this long and convoluted process, is a fairly gentle creature, but still a full on Motorpsycho album. It is an album that accesses the light and ‘heavenly’ 

Yang side of Motorpsychodelia more than any record has done in years, and is probably going to be one of those albums that make you go either ‘WTF?!?’ or ‘Finally!!’, depending on what tangent you prefer in the band’s musical universe. We are mentally prepeared for a few 

nay’

s too (sarcastic smartasses when rubbed the wrong way these psychonauts, aren’t you?), but in our minds we already know that this is destined to be perceived as a little gem in our canon. Also, while unmistakingly Motorpsychodelic, it is an album that we are certain many people, even outside the core of diehard Psychonauts, will appreciate. This is not always the case, but it’s a really good thing when it happens, and we are absolutly thrilled

with what – in spite of the circumstances of it’s creation – can only be called its’ quietly intense tone. No unicorns or divine chariots on this one, sorry (not!), but more than enough drama, promise!      

We spent the rest of the Covid period – the long years – both releasing and making other records, and working further on our music, and some day pts 2 and perhaps 3 of this plague continuum might see the light of day too, we’ll see. They were hard and weird years, but they had a vibe. So does the music we made during that period. 

 

So, did the band survive the long years? Yes, kind of. Tomas, who plays drums and percussion and sings a little on this record, decided to leave the band at the end of 2022. Seriously reevaluating his life and professional trajectory coming out of two years of Covid and six years of service onboard the mothership, he felt it was time to move on and pursue other challenges in music. We wish him luck.

Losing band members is never easy, but yeah – the band survived. We are still here, still alive, busy rehearsing various new and old band members for the next projects and tours we have lined up, and we are very proud to be able to present this document from a time and a place where it felt like the world was stopping and this whole band lark was all going to end. What a weird time that was, huh?

It’s a new morning in the Psychoverse, one with a little more sun in it. 

B.S. April ’23

Bent - The author at work
The author at work

Presave our new single Patterns here: https://orcd.co/motorpsychopatterns

Motorpsycho?  Yay!

1 – Cold & Bored
2 – Sentinels
3 – Patterns
4 – Dank State
5 – W.C.A.
6 – Real Again
7 – Lock Meaninglessness & the Mull Of Dull
8 – Hotel Daedalus
9 – Scaredcrow
10 – The Rapture

LP/CD/MC/digital

Presales May 5th 

Release June 16th


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