Musings On Music II: Neigh!! - Elysium, Soon

 On Friday the 13th of September, the other band that really made me realize that the era where I first started listening to them really defines what I listen to with them released their 27th (!) album (although if you could add a couple other releases depending on how you choose to count. The band is Motorpsycho, and I think I already have shared a little bit about how I started listening to them the summer of 1993 - and I did see them live at least once a year until I moved to the US in 1999. To me, the albums they releasted from Demon Box in 1999 through Trust Us in 1998 are unparallelled in Norwegian rock history - and they also form one of the strongest album arcs of any artist/band I have followed. 

However, following Trust Us, they started playing with pop arrangements, and while I think the three next albums are perfectly servicable with some songs that are absolutely spectacular, something was missing from the far out freak outs of their 90s output to me. It was still indeed Motorpsycho, but it did not hit me the same way as the earlier music had done. I almost wrote that it was not the same - but I am actually appreciative of that, as I do like that they grow, develop, and are true to themselves. But the thing was that to me, they didn't hit me the same way. Then their drummer, Gebhardt, left, and the album Black Hole/Blank Canvas was a letdown for me. I still struggle listening to it. But with their next album and their next drummer, Kenneth Kapstad, they were back to form again, and I loved the albums they released with him - but I struggle remembering many songs, if any. After Kapstad left, they got Tomas Järmyr in as a drummer, and once again, they created great albums that I enjoyed - but with limited durability or staying power.

Then Järmyr left, and they are back to the core duo of Bent Sæther on bass and vocals (and drums in the studio, at least) and Hans Magnus Ryan (Snah) on guitar and vocals. And then the album Neigh came out. And rarely has an album been more aptly named. It isn't that it is bad, and it could be that it will grow on me if I listen to it more, I just really don't feel like it. There is something missing. The lone highlight to me is Elysium, Soon - which sounds like the brother or sister of Evernine, one of the highlights of Trust Us for me. It's not that it's a bad album, as I already said, it's just not really clicking for me. And while I think that the obvious explanation to me is that it doesn't flow as freely as an album does when they play as an ensemble (although this was an odds and ends album, so the flow of the album may not have happened regardless - it's just that whenever they play a song without a drummer from outside the core duo, it sounds flat). 

But I do think that in contrast to Nick Cave, this proves my point. I don't think they ever will reach the same heights for me that they reached in the 90s. I think we may have grown apart - and nostalgia may be a significant factor here as well - but the bottom line is that the music they made in the 90s still hits me as hard as it did back then. I still love those albums... Demon Box, Timothy's Monster, Blissard, Angels And Daemons at Play, and Trust Us still get played often. And whenever I play them, I get transported to this other world. And I don't even really need to play them to listen to them. They have tattooed themselves onto my nervous system, hardwired themselves into my cerebral cortex, so all I need to do is focus - and I am right there, from the first "hee haw" of Waiting For The One that opens Demon Box to the climactic finish of Hey Jane that mellows out with Dolphyn (Eric Dolphy, anyone?) that ends Trust Us. Just about all of it is right there. And that is the beauty of music.

Now I have followed them for 31 years, and I will follow them until they pack it all up and close the doors to their bunker (battening the hatches, so to speak) - and I will keep on enjoying their music, but they really haven't created music that keep visiting me since Trust us in 1998. They have not released bad albums, but their music just has not clicked with me to the same extent. The only exceptions to this are their Roadwork live albums, where you still can hear the fire burning. In that sense, they are getting closer to Grateful Dead in that their live work surpasses their studio work - they just need to keep putting out great live music... I will be here to buy and to listen. 

In the meantime, I will keep on listening to the great albums from the 90s. And every now and then I will listen to some of the later work as well. Sometimes that does lead to me rediscovering music I almost had written off, and with Motorpsycho being as strong of a band as they are, I am almost expecting that to happen. And then there is Elysium, Soon. I will keep listening to it. 

Musings On Music I - Wild God

These past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about music - and about how so much about it is dependent on time and place. Back when I was in high school, I am thinking 1988 or so, I was introduced to Nick Cave by Lars Tomren Støring, one of the new friends I had made with a great taste in music. And I should probably point out that when I said he introduced me to him, I am really talking about his music - I have not met the man himself (although I finally have seen him live - and I will see him live again in Detroit on April 19, 2025 - but this time with The Bad Seeds). The album that launched my love for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was Tender Prey, with The Mercy Seat as the focal point (later covered very successfully by Johnny Cash), and ever since, he has been a fixture in my record collection - and in my musical taste. The next album, The Good Son (1990), was the one most of my other friends discovered, but I kept going back to Tender Prey. The Good Son was followed by a string of great albums: Henry’s Dream (1992), Let Love In (1994), Murder Ballads (1996), and The Boatman’s Call (1997). It is quite an impressive string if albums, and while I mainly go back to Henry’s Dream and The Boatman’s Call, I really love this series of album, as well as No More Shall We Part from 2001. 2004’s Nocturama was a low point for me, and I almost gave up on him, especially after hearing that Blixa Bargeld left The Bad Seeds prior to Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus from 2004; however that was a true return to form. 

I have been following him and his career all the while, through Grinderman and work with Warren Ellis as well as more solo oriented recordings and tours, and he has always been there, lurking, with music that recently has made me think more than feel. His career started changing with the album Push The Sky Away (2013), where traditional song structures were disappearing for more free form poetry accompanied by a more ethereal sounding Bad Seeds. Personal tragedy struck while he was recording Skeleton Tree (2016), and this style of music was taken to a long-form extreme on Ghosteen (2019). Of course, being somewhat of a completist, I have also gone back in time and listened to the albums released prior to Tender Prey, including the work from The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party. But the music of his that is nearest and dearest to me is still the output from the 1990s, which is when I was most active listening to music - and probably when a lot was imprinted on me. 

And that is really what I wanted to write about, and I will do a follow up to show a contrasting feeling with a different artist that is near and dear to my heart. I am developing somewhat of a thesis that when we first hear an artist - and I am really talking about the period here more than a specific year, although in some cases, that is how short the period is - really cements how we listen to them. And it doesn’t have to be contemporaneous music to when we first hear them (if that was the case, I would be listening more to Paul McCartney and Wings than The Beatles, as The Beatles were over by the time I was born), but it is the music we got introduced to. And there aren’t many exceptions to that in my book. But Nick Cave is one of them. 

Now, let me be very clear about one thing: I am all for artists developing and evolving - and I am also perfectly at ease with me evolving in a different direction - that is what growing apart is all about. But sometimes artists grow in ways that are separate, yet somewhat parallel - but make just the right turn at just the right time to hit you just right again. Nick Cave is one of those artists for me. Like I said earlier, Nocturama was a low point, but Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus became a spectacular high again - and it is one album I keep on revisiting, especially Abbatoir Blues. Dig Lazarus Dig (2008) sounded like he tried too hard, and, as I already have said, Push The Sky Away, Skeleton Tree, and Ghosteen all hit me differently. They are great albums, but they are not ones I come back to all the time (although there are songs like the haunting Jesus Alone that follow me around) - until Wild God, released August 30. I have listened to it quite a bit - but I also find that the songs from it come to visit me frequently. It started with Wild God, but I find that songs like Frogs and Joy and Conversion also come visiting more and more often. And that, too me, is what makes an album great. When you can listen to it when it isn’t even playing. There are some albums I can do that with - and that is happening with Wild God to me right now. 

I don’t know that I will think that any of his albums will top the series he released from Tender Prey in 1988 through The Boatman’s Call in 1997 (I might throw in No More Shall We Part from 2001 as well) to me - and that is the important thing to remember here, this is all about how I connected with his music - but Wild God is damn close. As was Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. And that, to me, is what makes Nick Cave so very special. And I am pumped to see him live with The Bad Seeds in April!