MOTORPSYCHO & STÅLE STORLØKKEN - The Death Defying Unicorn

Kategorie: CD-Reviews | Genre: Prog, Psychedelic/Space Rock, Avantgarde | Heft: Jahrgang 2012, eclipsed Nr. 138 / 3-2012 | VÖ-Jahr: 2012 | Wertung: 9/10, Album des Monats | Label: Stickman | Autor: WK


Meaningless gigantism usually leads to emptiness, because it is based solely on transparent effects that wear out quickly. In Gustav Mahler's 8th Symphony we learned that gigantism can also be touching. Now perhaps touching is the wrong term to describe the new opus of Motorpsycho, but it is overwhelming anyway. Not least because the band has copied a lot from the great composers around 1900. What speaks for the three Norwegians is that they know their own limits very well. In order to formulate a statement that works precisely with the very largest formats, they had to bring on board a like-minded person who understands these formats. They found him in keyboarder Ståle Storløkken, one of Norway's most prominent jazz musicians. He is responsible for the sophisticated arrangements with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, the Trondheim soloists and star violinist Ola Kvernberg. Together they reach for the stars. Music is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And even bigger and even bigger and even bigger. And it doesn't stop. But the band never loses the narrative thread of their abstruse sailor story. The large format is not an end in itself here. At no time does the musical logic subordinate itself to the cadre. It's the other way around, the story defines the means. Motorpsycho and Storløkken pour out a cornucopia of gripping melodies and fascinating sound sparkle over the listener. We go on a journey with the sailors and feel the full force and mercilessness of the sea. We feel the unfathomable depth of the ocean, suspect a bizarre variety of forms deep below the surface and become part of creation. The obvious and the fateful build up an antagonistic as well as creative relationship of tension. The creature that blows it up is already lurking in every form. Where other bands would paralyze themselves in an unmanageable apparatus, Motorpsycho remain agile and supple. Their last two albums, which weren't exactly small either, are like dress rehearsals from the perspective of "The Death Defying Unicorn". These 124 minutes belong to the greatest and most elaborate rock history has ever produced. But they also bear witness to the unbelievable skill of a band that better than anyone else expresses the contemporary need for an organic fusion of the greatest moments of rock, jazz and classical music.

Top track: Through The Veil

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