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Motion Turns It On – Live at the Southpaw

The easiest thing to hate about so much prog, old and new, is the copious instrumental ability turned towards nothing more than showing off, with the concept of focused songwriting dropped like a vestigial organ. I’ve reviewed more faceless math rock bands that could play the hell out of their instruments without doing a single interesting thing musically than I want to remember, and, in some ways, the overly simplistic arrangements of so many post-rock bands seems like the reactionary punk rock answer to so much onanism (the truth being more painful: many of these bands have limited abilities). Thank God for Motion Turns It On, who continue to remind me that Herculean musicianship and tasteful songwriting need not be mutually exclusive.

Motion Turns It On caught my attention last year with the excellent and woefully undernoticed Rima, which highlighted the skills of a band that had taken six or so years to really get comfortable with each other as musicians before trying to foist their compositions upon the world. A year later, and the band has unleashed the similarly impressive Live at the Southpaw EP to demonstrate that they are every bit as capable live as they are in the studio.

On this immaculate-sounding live document (seriously, the production here is tits; I wouldn’t have thought “live” without knowing it), Motion Turns It On debut three new compositions alongside the excellent “Satelightening” from Rima. The basic sound is the same—aggressive, polyrhythmic drumming, a manic-but-rock-solid bass anchor, and frantic solo tradeoffs between the guitar and the keys—but the sound here is a bit looser and more ragged than on record. This is a good thing, as the sheer talent that the musicians bring to bear on these songs becomes more apparent when highlighted by the improvisational, one-take-is-all-you-get nature of live performance.

Singling out a standout moment from any of these fierce, energetic displays is difficult, as I’m continually amazed by how in tune with one another – and with the needs of the songs – the musicians remain while flexing their chops, but if I had to pick one, I’d say at around 4:30 in “Moyedi (The Gazelle Gets Its Revenge)” when the keyboards are tearing through subspace and William Kenny drops his guitar to throw a simple, but effective, trumpet line over the chaos. It’s a beautiful moment, one that’s as unexpected as it is unforced, and it highlights just how delicate the balance between rehearsed tightness and improvisational flare can be. It’s a productive tension that generates a boundless sense of possibility, one that’s becoming increasingly rare in younger post-rock bands, The Samuel Jackson Five and The Drift being Motion Turns It On’s only real company in this regard (pretty significant company, if you ask me). “Satelightening” clocks in at three minutes longer than its studio counterpart and is all the better for it, further driving home that the point that this is a band possessed of the confidence and talent to experiment successfully with what would be lockstep regurgitation for so many others.

About the only negative to this disc I can come up with is that, at just under half an hour, it leaves me wanting more. Motion Turns It On are quickly becoming peerless in the instrumental scene, and I’d advise you to get on the bandwagon now so you can say you liked them way back when.  Live at the Southpaw is chock full of incredible sounds, and I eagerly anticipate this talented, charismatic band’s next full-length. The fact that this band remains unsigned is criminal – they’re doing backflips around most of the signed instrumental acts out there. Next time they come as near to me as the Southpaw, I won’t be so foolish as to miss them.

— Lucas Kane, thesilentballet.com