Psychedelic dreamers and groove connoisseurs, your new fixation has arrived: Motopony is back with an excellent new album, Welcome You, on the heels of last year’s immensely promising Idle Beauty EP. We had a blast bringing the Seattle sextet into the fold as Crave’s Band of The Month for November, and with the strength of the new material we couldn’t resist a CraveOnstage revisit.
This time around, the band teamed with producer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Heartless Bastards, Trail Of The Dead) to shape the proper frequency, and the immersively golden result is now available on iTunes, Amazon Music and at local record stores.
Lead guitarists Mike Notter and Nate Daley shape the perimeters of sound alongside the immersive rhythmic vertebrae of drummer Forrest Mauvais and bassist/synth-maestro Terry Mattson, as Andrew Butler’s fingerwork on keys delivers an ethereal sheen. Frontman Daniel Blue, starry-eyed Bohemian-poet ringleader, pulls the sound to a rich psychedelic-pop center and sets the energy exchange in motion between listener and creator.
Check out two exclusive in-studio performances by Motopony just prior to the release of Welcome You, featuring new songs “Live in 1971” and “Easy Come, Easy Go”.
Live In 1971:
Easy Come, Easy Go:
We caught up with Daniel Blue just prior to Welcome You‘s official release to gain a glimpse of the band’s energy and anticipation for what’s sure to be an illuminated road ahead.
What is the energy among the band going into the release of Welcome You? Hope? Anticipation? Anxiety? Nausea?
I’d say the releasee is giving us a mix of hope and relief. We’ve spent the last 4-5 years building up for this moment. It’s odd to give so much of your life and money and potential to one particular piece of art, but there weren’t any other baskets laying around that we wanted to put our eggs into. This is it.
What’s the best physical setting for someone to listen to Welcome You for the first time?
Best way I can think of to listen to “Welcome You”, is to get the limited edition 12″ with the insert ..Sit down with a glass of wine or a joint of about a 60/40 mix of indica and sativa. Please place your turntable in front of you and try and create an equilateral triangle with 7’7″ side lengths between you (the point of your triangle) and your right and left speakers. As the title track (track one) builds you should let yourself fall into the impressionistic collage world that my friend Alexander Jones made special as he watched us rehearse and get ready for the studio to record these songs. Please listen to side A, let yourself take a break to pee or get another bottle of wine, and then settle back into side B. Please do not drive or swim for an hour after listening to this record front to back.
Is there a band whose career trajectory you’d like to see reflected in Motopony’s journey?
The Grateful Dead.
You’ve played India, you’ve been on the festival circuit, and you’re currently on a hometown marquee between Death Grips and Jurassic 5. What short-term goals do you have for the band, for yourself this year?
This Year we intend to find ourselves in Europe and (fingers crossed) Japan, as well as begin the writing and pruning of our third album.
What are you reading these days?
Im reading a smattering of YA fiction (as I intend to write a Dragon vs Spaceship epoch ala JK Rowling) as well as a book Titled, “Jung and the Tarot” a study in tarot archetypes….and a book called Quantum Physics for Poets.
Forrest is reading “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran. Nate is reading a book on the Trickster Energy, and Andrew is reading the Arts Section of the NY Times.
Pick up Welcome You on iTunes, Amazon Music and at local record stores.
