Sailing to Byzantium

In December Rune Grammofon released another beautiful collection, the 4 X 10" box "Sailing to Byzantium", a "strictly one-off edition of only 500 copies".

You get a nice selection of Rune tracks, perfectly "themed" on the different records, a fold out poster and a Rob Young interview with label boss Rune Kristoffersen and designer Kim Hiorthøy.
Arve Henriksen´s "Silver Box" is an exclusive.

Blue:
Hedvig Mollestad Trio – Sing, Goddess
Bushman´s Revenge – As We Used To Sing (Live)
Scorch Trio – Kjøle Høle

Green:
Motorpsycho – Year Zero (A Damage Report)
FIRE! – Your Silhouette On Each (Without Noticing)
Elephant9 – Hardcore Orientale

White:
Phaedra – Honeydewed Autumn
Jenny Hval – Blood Flight
The Last Hurrah!! – The Lonely Whistle Call
Hilde Marie Kjersem – That Day In The Shower
Tove Nilsen – Jordan

Red:
Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus - Drawing An Arc
Maja Ratkje - Intro
Alog – Baklandet
Espen Eriksen Trio – In The Woods
Nils Økland – Blond Blå
Arve Henriksen – Silver Box


Look for the previous samplers from Rune Grammofon here.

August

Alright, let´s face it, it´s August already!

To "celebrate", check out Motorpsycho and Reine Fiske, and their version of Arthur Lee´s (Love) "August" (Rome, May 2013).

"August" is a track on Motorpsycho´s highly recommended album "Still life with eggplant" (Rune 2013).

The Death Defying Unicorn

"Motorpsyho and Ståle Storløkken present The Death Defying Unicorn. A fanciful and fairly far-out musical fable. Featuring Ola Kvernberg, Trondheimsolistene and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra" (Rune 2012)! No less!
Let´s just spill it, this is a prog opera (to be performed at the Norwegian Opera this fall), with a "libretto" inspired by books written by Owen Chase, N. Philbrick and Patrick O´Brian.

Motorpsycho is Kenneth Kapstad, Hans Magnus Ryan and Bent Sæther, and this time with Ståle Storløkken (keyb, composer, arranger) as important part of the group. This work was originally performed at the Molde International Jazz Festival in 2010 (commissioned work), but this is a quite different version, with quite a gang of musicians involved!
We have the strings of the Trondheim Soloists, the horns of the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra (Kjetil Møster, Hanna Paulsberg, Klaus E. Holm, André Roligheten, Mathias Eick, Eivind N. Lønning, Mats Äleklint and Kristoffer Kompen), and not to be forgotten, Kåre Chr. Vestrheim (mellotron ++) and Ola Kvernberg (violin).

The album has received rave reviews here in Norway, and everybody seem to agree that this is the big thing. To me it may be just a little bit too big some places, but let me admit, I am the kind of guy who has sold off all my Yes and Rick Wakeman albums long time ago. That may not have been very smart, because it seems like prog is back. Better prepare for a punk revival in a year or so.

If you are into prog, get it right away!

My favorite tunes: "Through the veil", "Mutiny!" and "Into the mystic".

Cover design: Kim Hiorthøy.
Illustration: Thore Hansen.

El Doom, Motorpsycho, Bushman´s, Susanna

Rune Grammofon are keeping up a tight release schedule this year too.
They already let loose El Doom & The Born Electric, and here are their plans for the first three months of 2012:

20.01 Bushman´s Revenge - A Little Bit Of Big Bonanza (CD / LP)
20.01 Bushman´s Revenge - Never Mind The Botox (LP)
17.02 Motorpsycho with Ståle Storløkken - The Death Defying Unicorn (2CD / 2LP)
02.03 Astrïd - High Blues (CD)
02.03 Volcano The Bear - Golden Rhythm / Ink Music (CD / LP)
16.03 Susanna - Wild Dog (CD).

Motorpsycho at the Nidaros Cathedral

Oh! How about that?! Motorpsycho and Ståle Storløkken at the Nidaros Cathedral (Nidarosdomen, Trondheim, Norway) (early November 2011?) Lights: Pekka Stokke.

Supersilent and Hans Magnus Ryan

 
And just like we wished for in the previous blog post, Henie Onstad uploaded a couple of videos from the concert with Supersilent and Motorpsycho´s Hans Magnus Ryan.
Wish I was there!

Motorpsycho 7"

The new Motorpsycho 7" from Rune Grammofon is out now (1000 copies made).
Side A is a shorter version of X-3 (knuckleheads in space) from "Heavy metal Fruit", named "kåres kommers-klipp" here ("kåre´s commercial cut"). Kåre being producer Kåre Chr Vestrheim I guess. Side B is an exclusive outtake from the Heavy Metal Fruit sessions called I.C.U. (bonganoid). This is a real rocker, and I bet it really lasts for 20 minutes. We´ll get the rest later perhaps.
Cover: Kim Hiorthøy (not named on his own cover).

The Norwegian magazine Jazznytt (number 01/2010) has a piece called "Det indre livet i Motorpsycho" ("Motorpsyco from the inside"), where the band members list their 10 favorite albums ever. Wyattandstuff is pleased to see that Snah lists Robert Wyatt´s "Rock Bottom" and Soft Machine´s "Third". Nice bloke that Snah!

Rune vinyl

Today I will just pass on a message from Rune Grammofon:

"Because of overwhelming demand we have pressed another 300 copies of Elephant9´s great debut album. This is the same as the first edition, white vinyl and the same fantastic gatefold sleeve.

The same goes for the Shining two-pack, 300 copies, but this time on white vinyl. Both the original Rune Grammofon releases are included in full and the sleeve is the same as with the first edition.

For international customers it´s smart to order these at the same time as they are just under 1 kg and will save you good money on postage. But please note that even one cd in addition will make it over 2 kg and much more expensive. The difference in postage for Norwegian customers is smaller.

Please also note that on 22. February we will release the new Elephant9 album on both CD and LP and the first Motorpsycho 7” for quite some time. This is a shorter version of X-3 (Knuckleheads In Space) b/w I.C.U (Boinganoid), an outtake from the HMF sessions, and comes in a Kim Hiorthøy picture sleeve. Please note that this little beauty comes in a limited edition of 1000 copies for the world and only on Rune Grammofon. Please don´t email us orders, these will be ignored. We will accept pre-orders soon.
www.runegrammofon.com".

Heavy Metal Fruit

Motorpsycho are at it again! Less than half a year after the only on vinyl album "Child of the future", Rune Grammofon puts out "Heavy metal fruit". It is classic Motorpsycho, and damned good, with stretched out numbers smelling a bit of both prog and Grateful Dead. I wouldn´t have been disappointed if they cut it down a bit (won´tell you where), but as long as they offer a three sided double vinyl edition, with cover by Kim Hiorthøy, and side A etched by the same man, you will not hear me complain.
The band is Kenneth Kapstad, Hans Magnus Ryan and Bent Sæther, and they are joined by Kåre Chr Vestrheim (keyb), Hanne Hukkelberg (voc) and Mathias Eick (tp).
They also had one of the LP sides etched by Hiorthøy on "Timoty´s Monster" (1994).

Rune Grammofon 2010

Forthcoming Rune Grammofon releases for 2010 include Motorpsycho with "Heavy Metal Fruit" in January, Elephant9 with "Walk The Nile" in February, the debut album from Espen Eriksen Trio in March, and later on Bushman´s Revenge, Puma and Stian Westerhus
And they still have a sale on some of their albums, but you better hurry up.

Multicolour splatter vinyl

If you collect Motorpsycho, you'd better hurry up. Rune Grammofon has made a "multicolour splatter vinyl" edition of "Little Lucid Moments" (500 albums, and that's it). You may even buy it together with an even more limited edition T-shirt! Look here.
I've given "Little Lucid Moments" thumbs up earlier in this blog, and believe it's only getting better.

Motorpsychologic

Motorpsycho’s latest album, ”Little Lucid Moments”, is out now on Rune Grammofon (RCD 2073, or double LP RLP 3073). Hans Magnus Ryan, Bent Sæther and Kenneth Kapstad cook up some mean powerpsychoprogmetal. The reviewers in the Norwegian media disagree on how good this album is, but for me it works just fine. I think I can hear some great (?) prog bands here (one song out of four is a suite in four parts, no less!) mixed with some Metallica and a touch of Grateful Dead , but it still is pure Motorpsycho. If they are going to stretch out any of this material live, we will get two numbers during a concert, that is before the set of encores. Tour info from Rune:

18.04 Steinkjer (Studenten), Norway
25.04 Oslo (Rockefeller), Norway
26.04 Stavanger (Folken), Norway
28.04 Bergen (Røkeriet), Norway
29.04 Kristiansand (Kick), Norway
17.05 Berlin (Postbahnhof), Germany
18.05 Cologne (Live Music Hall), Germany
20.05 München (Backstage Werk), Germany
22.05 Firenze (Viper), Italy
23.05 Roma (Alpheus), Italy
24.05 Rimini (Velvet), Italy
25.05 Milano (Alcatraz), Italy
28.05 Eindhoven (Effenaar), The Netherlands
29.05 Utrecht (Tivoli), The Netherlands
30.05 Bremen (Schlachthof), Germany
31.05 Hamburg (Fabrik), Germany
01.06 Copenhagen (Lille Vega), Denmark
19-22.06 Louisville (Terrastock 7), USA
19.07 Burg Herzberg, Germany