RACD114 - Motorpsycho: Angels and Daemons at Play (6CD)
This is the fourth installment in the ongoing Motorpsycho luxury box-set re-issue program. While almost every Motorpsycho release is in one way or another a step forward, backwards, sideways, and most often everything at once, Angels and Daemons at Play is probably their first (can there be more than one...?) coming-of-age album. Following on the heels of the more streamlined Blissard, AADAP is the typically stubborn response from a band refusing to be categorized. Thus it is possibly the most varied, and on the whole, most experimental of all their albums. They also had the stubborn idea - as explained in the liner notes - to originally split it into three CDs, even if all the music would have fitted on one. Here, this original idea is continued on the three first discs.
Disc 4 includes the Starmelt EP, various outtakes and rarities. One of several golden nuggets here is the very first performance of Un Chien d´Espace ever, improvising to Luis Bunuel´s surreal short film Un Chién Andalou at Cinemateket in Oslo in 1996. Only the beginning and end were written, while everything else was up for grabs.
Disc 5 and 6 consist of the complete two and a half hour March 14, 1997 concert at Rockefeller in Oslo, recorded by NRK, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation. Never broadcasted in its entirety, and with the original mixes mastered by Helge Sten, this is the best and most complete version one will be able to own. One of the rare and lost treasures is Deathprod´s quite epic Komet, which took up almost half an hour at the beginning of this all around killer show.
In addition to all of this, you get a 24-page booklet with entertaining and enlightening liner notes, song comments and rare photos. To top it off, there are - wait for it - three very nice popcard type prints of Bent, Snah and Gebhardt.
Finally, the whole thing sports immaculate design by Kim Hiorthøy, using elements from the original 3CD set as well as some "remixed" and new stuff.
Simply essential!
Released 02.12.16