Motorpsycho - The All Is One (new album Aug 2020)

Another year, Another Motorpsycho album. This time round it'll be another double album. Here's some details from various official sources:

"At the center of this album is a long 5 part piece featuring some of the most radical stuff we’ve done on record in a while, but if the prospect of a 42minute piece for ballet inspired by paintings, alchemy and the tarot seems too daunting, there is also a handful of losely related shorter songs to get into. For us this is obviously just different views and tangents of the one thing, but you will all make of it what you will, and hopefully it will all make some sort of sense to you however deep you choose to go." - Bob LeBad at www.motorpsycho.no

"A double LP and double CD set, The All Is One features music from two sessions that took place in 2019, the first at Black Box Studio in France, with Reine Fiske, and the second at Ocean Sound Studio in Norway with Lars Horntveth and Ola Kvernberg. This last session gave birth to a 42 minute, 5 part piece of epic proportions, inspired by paintings, alchemy and the tarot. Buckle up, folks! There is also a selection of shorter songs, loosely clocking in between 3 and 10 minutes." - Rune Grammofon (the band's Norwegian record label)

"Motorpsycho’s new record The All Is One is a miraculous work and a much needed diversion, but one not left unscathed by Covid-19. Recorded between September-November of 2019 in France and Norway, the album was originally planned for a release in spring but was inevitably postponed. As the band says, however, 'It somehow seems a little better for it to us as things’ve had time to mature and settle before being unveiled to the public. It has become one intense listen, an epic and dense piece of music that might be perceived as demanding by some listeners, but that also hopefully rewards those with patience and a longer attention span.'

"The All Is One feels much like the perfect Motorpsycho live performance: an unpredictable journey, ebbing and flowing, hypnotizing the listener and stopping the clock. Guest musicians such as Reine Fiske, Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist, Amgala Temple) and Ola Kvernberg (Steamdome) step in and out of frame during the voyage, further enriching an album already so jam-packed with ideas one wonders how it can all be contained by vinyl." - Stickman Records (the band's label outside Norway)

So what are your thoughts Motorpsycho fans and lovers? Personally I'm having trouble containing myself. I knew the band had announced that they'd recorded more than a double album's worth of material in September and then returned to the studio in November to record the specially commissioned piece with Kvernberg and Horntveth (a piece they played live at two festivals last summer). I had expected the latter to appear as a separate release, something like The Death Defying Unicorn, En Konsert for Folk Flest, or Begynnelser, but to see that it will now make up half the new album has left me wondering how the album will sound as a whole - or will it be presented as a double album of two very different halves?

As usual, Motorpsycho will give us what they want and not what we expect! Less than two months to release date!