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Weirdness is a requirement if you lay claim to being America’s best krautrock band, and with the end-times dance rock Møtrik makes on their latest LP, Earth, that claim feels accurate.
It was largely a bunch of crazed German geniuses who invented this hybrid style of progressive and psychedelic rock, punk, electronic, and deeply rhythmic percussion in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Fans of the cultish genre known for acts like Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk and Faust tend to connect through the insider knowledge required to love this musically challenging and weirdly danceable music.
That is precisely what drew the members of Portland’s own krautrock torchbearers together roughly a decade ago. Even their name is a nod to the “motorik,” the repetitious 4/4 beat that gives krautrock its signature sound of constant forward motion and heavy rhythmic pulses. And if you need proof, just look at Earth when it comes out on Nov. 7. The band will play a release show at The Showdown on Nov. 1. Lounging and drinking beers at their inner eastside practice space on a recent Wednesday, Møtrik’s members were eager to talk about Earth and their evolution from krautrock obsessives into one of the genre’s more prominent modern champions.
There are more famous interpreters of the music—Osees, Beak>, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and the now broken-up Kikagaku Moyo—but where Møtrik differs is in staying faithful to the more classic krautrock sounds instead of blending influences like guitar-driven psych rock. Earth finds the band continuing to refine this faithful sound while showcasing the collective visions of Erik Golts (bass, vocals, synthesizers), Cord Amato (guitar, synthesizer), Lee Ritter (drums), Jonah Nolde (guitar, synthesizers) and Dave Fulton (synthesizers, sequencers).
“This album seems like every one of these songs was built off of a demo. And we all have our own studio setups at home. All of these were pretty much like demos that we just all brought into the band and said, all right, let’s work on this song,” Nolde says, adding that each band member’s demos were “run through the Møtrik machine.”
When entering Vancouver, Wash.’s recording studio Scenic Burrows for Earth, the band set their sights on creating something more cohesive than previous studio efforts. They wanted the music to reflect the chemistry that’s developed over the course of their 10 years together. It was also at the studio where they spotted the sign that inspired the album name.
“When we showed up, it’s like one of the first things you see if you go into the kitchen is this green neon Earth sign. We were just like, that sign is amazing and our last album was called Moon, and we should take a picture of this neon sign,” Fulton says.
That neon sign is on the album cover, hovering over a dog running on the Oregon Coast. The image is darkly cinematic, almost foreboding and dystopian, which translates to the music. The band is hesitant to define one cohesive theme or message linking Earth’s songs, but their label Jealous Butcher calls the album “a soundtrack to our strange, unraveling future.”
“I feel like this album is a little more focused compared to our previous albums in that we kind of just cut to the chase quicker,” Golts says. “On Moon, we kind of built into things, jammed. I think this one was a little more like, all right, let’s just take the best three to four minutes of this and fine-tune it.”
Møtrik has gradually shifted away from that looser approach of just jamming to each bringing in their own demos, allowing them to build a sound they feel is more sophisticated and complex. Earth features hypnotic songs and mysterious lyrics that the band likes to leave up to the listener’s interpretation. Is this music for the end times, or a triumphant message of hope from the future? Deadpan vocals float ominously over perpetually grooving synths and precise, metronomic beats, making for slowly unfurling sonic drives that beckon listeners to strap in. Nearly all Møtrik’s members play synths, imbuing the music with its futuristic and transcendent sci-fi vibes. The music is simultaneously fresh and new while faithful to its krautrock foundation.
For a band that makes such propulsive, energetic music, studio recordings are, of course, only one part of the experience. Møtrik is as obsessive about live shows as they are albums. Shows are known for being both trance- and dance-inducing affairs loaded with fog machines, trippy lights, and the occasional parking cone, a touch of homage to the cover of Kraftwerk’s 1970 debut album. The band members wear uniforms in homage to acts like Devo and laserlike lights on their heads as if stepping off a spaceship, while never taking themselves too seriously.
“I feel like everyone in the band kind of comes to songs from a different angle, and we’re always going to what we feel sounds the best,” Amato says. “That voice in the back of your head [is like] we want to kind of keep this music in a certain sort of lane, but I think it’s just about kind of whatever sounds the best to the song.”
SEE IT: Møtrik at The Showdown, 1195 SE Powell Blvd., 866-777-8932, showdownpdx.com. 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 1. $15. 21+.
