Motorpsycho

Deriving their name from a film by the American sexploitation director Russ Meyer, the Trondheim-based Norwegian outfit Motorpsycho crafts an adventurous blend that fuses progressive rock, psychedelia, alternative rock, folk-rock, hard rock, jazz, country, and vintage heavy metal. Emerging at full strength in the late 1980s, the band gained serious momentum via their expansive third release, Demon Box, a two-LP set that secured a Norwegian Grammy nomination. Building on that foundation, Motorpsycho pursued wider recognition both domestically and internationally through a succession of well-received albums that freely traversed stylistic boundaries, with standout entries including 2001’s Phanerothyme and 2009’s Child of the Future. Commissioned by the Teknisk Museum, Here Be Monsters surfaced in 2014. The group launched an experimental, genre-spanning trilogy with the expansive double album The Tower in 2017, followed by 2019’s The Crucible and 2020’s The All Is One. The subsequent year brought the double-length Kingdom of Oblivion, viewed as a return to hard rock and paired with the four-track, live-in-studio Ancient Astronauts in 2022. Turning away from grand concepts, 2023’s Yay! presented a direct, intimate collection of acoustically rooted songs.

Motorpsycho came together in autumn 1989 when guitarist Hans Magnus “Snah” Ryan, bassist Bent Saether, and drummer Kjell Runar “Killer” Jenssen—already acquainted from regional club work with other acts—formed the initial lineup. After recording a 1990 demo later issued as Maiden Voyage and delivering their first LP, Lobotomizer, in 1991, Jenssen departed; high-school acquaintance Håkon Gebhardt stepped in on drums. Following several EPs and vinyl-only releases, the revised lineup welcomed Helge Sten on keyboards and electronics, resulting in the ambitious 1993 double album Demon Box, which drew strong critical praise and broadened their audience. Remaining prolific, the band issued a pair of EPs in late 1993 and early 1994 before unveiling the sprawling Timothy’s Monster, a two-CD or three-LP work. After its release, Sten stepped back from full-time membership yet continued studio and occasional live contributions; guitarist Morten Fagervik and keyboardist Lars Lien joined in his stead.

In 1995 the group unveiled The Tussler, a soundtrack for a film existing solely in their imagination, and despite an intensive touring calendar returned with Blissard in 1996. By the arrival of Angels and Daemons at Play in 1997, Fagervik and Lien had exited, leaving the core trio of Ryan, Saether, and Gebhardt to continue with Trust Us in 1998 and the debut Roadworks volume of live archival recordings in 1999. Entering the new century, Motorpsycho sustained a demanding pace of recording and performance, delivering four studio albums, an additional Roadworks installment, and a collaborative EP with Jaga Jazzist Horns between 2000 and 2003; jazz and electronic textures assumed greater prominence during this phase. Gebhardt left in 2005, prompting the 2007 album Black Hole/Blank Canvas, cut by Ryan and Saether as a duo alongside guest percussionist Jacco van Rooij and vibraphonist Øyvind Brandtsegg. Little Lucid Moments, released in 2008, introduced full-time drummer Kenneth Kapstad, while the 20th-anniversary vinyl-only Child of the Future appeared in 2009, engineered by Steve Albini. Heavy Metal Fruit followed in 2010, and the fourth Roadworks collection arrived in 2011.

Collaborating in 2012 with keyboardist/composer/arranger Ståle Storløkken (Supersilent, Elephant9, Humcrush, Terje Rypdal) and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, the band issued a studio reimagining of the 2011 concert piece The Death Defying Unicorn, originally commissioned by the Molde International Jazz Festival for its 50th anniversary. Still Life with Eggplant appeared in 2013, succeeded by Behind the Sun in March 2014. That spring the group announced the ultra-limited The Motorpnakotic Fragments (1,200 copies), assembled from four 7-inch singles plus a full-album disc, distributed throughout autumn 2014. Motorpsycho began 2015 with a deluxe five-disc reissue of the 1993 album Demon Box that restored the original double-album sequence, added bonus EPs and rarities, and included a concert video; the set was fully remastered. A live acoustic vinyl release, En Konsert for Folk Flest, followed, alongside a 25-year retrospective exhibition titled Supersonic Scientists at Rockheim, Norway’s national rock museum. The band’s first career-spanning collection, Supersonic Scientists: A Young Person’s Guide to Motorpsycho, drew one track each from their standard studio albums, excluding soundtracks, live sets, collaborations, or special projects. February brought the new single, a cover of H.P. Lovecraft’s rendering of Terry Callier’s “Spin Spin Spin.”

Here Be Monsters appeared a month later, its music originally commissioned for the Norwegian Technical Museum’s centennial celebration in November 2014 and written for the expanded lineup featuring Storløkken, who was unavailable for the recording sessions. After touring the album, Kapstad exited, leaving Saether and Ryan to compose and rehearse a live score for Carl Frode Tiller’s play Begynnelser; a double-live album and DVD of that score emerged in 2017. New drummer Tomas Järmyr joined as a permanent member and debuted on the 2017 double LP The Tower. The three-track The Crucible, sharing visual and musical threads with its predecessor yet not strictly a sequel, was tracked at Monnow Valley Studios in Wales in August 2018 with co-producers Andrew Scheps and Deathprod before appearing in March 2019. Completing the informally titled Gullvåg Trilogy, The All Is One arrived in August 2020 after sessions in France and Norway from September to November of the prior year; though planned for spring, the double album was postponed, allowing further refinement, and ultimately charted while earning a Spellemannprisen nomination for Album of the Year.

After limited pandemic-era shows, Motorpsycho returned to the studio for months of writing and tracking, steering consciously toward heavier terrain and emerging with Kingdom of Oblivion, a 70-minute double album that revisited hard rock and metal while retaining recent prog explorations. Continuing their rock-focused direction post-Gullvåg Trilogy, the band issued Ancient Astronauts in 2022. Reuniting with producer Deathprod for five days at Oslo’s Amper Tone studio, they jammed and composed on-site, yielding four tracks captured essentially live in the studio, among them the 22-minute instrumental “Chariot of the Sun: To Phaeton on the Occasion of Sunrise (Theme from an Imagined Movie),” later augmented with vocals, keyboards, and additional guitars.

Following 2014’s Here Be Monsters, Motorpsycho had gravitated toward ambitious conceptual works emphasizing prog, jazz, arrangement, and improvisation over conventional songcraft. In response, Saether composed ten acoustically based songs recorded by the trio of Järmyr, Ryan, and Saether with intimate, straightforward pop-style production drawing on 1970s and 1980s influences. Co-produced by Fisk and Lars Fredrik Swahn, the resulting album was released exclusively by Stickman in June 2023.