MOTOR

2006 has been a phenomenal year for MOTOR . Not only did they unleash their debut album, 'Klunk', on the back of their 'Stuka Stunt', 'Sweatbox' and 'Black Powder' singles, but their live show as a travelling three piece has torn up clubs, gigs and festivals the world over. MOTOR supported Nitzer Ebb on their world tour and appeared at such festivals as I Love Techno with Kraftwerk, and Pukkelpop with Daft Punk.
If MOTOR have gone some way to setting themselves apart from other electronic live acts, then their sophomore album Unhuman has developed their sound away from the continued metallic pummel of 2006's debut Klunk. Whilst obvious club pleasing tracks such as tense acid workout 'Flashback' have already become live show favourites, demolition road tested throughout America, Japan and Europe, the album displays a warmer and more developed sound. "It's got more soul", says Bryan. "It has more depth and is more mature. Musically we were always avant-garde. The first one was an experiment. Here we've pushed ourselves with a range of vocals and melodies which maybe we wouldn't have done with the first album."
Unhuman (its not a word) carries on from the age old themes explored by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Isaac Azimov's Laws of Robotics and Kraftwerk's cybernetic interface. "We always felt that this had a more human element to it but at the same time there's not. We're still fighting with the man-machine concept. The machine is struggling to be human but clearly it can't be." Whilst debut album Klunk proved to be a clubland body blow, with wave after wave of industrial sturm and acid drang, Unhuman delves further into the structure of melody and vocals. Tracks such as '20 Volts of Steel' morph vocodered vocals into jacking Chicago house whilst 'Night Drive' tags hypnotic synth lines onto the chromed body work of a sleek, midnight destined electro-chariot. Title track 'Unhuman' and 'Drug Punk' utilise a vocoder in a way as to ghost the melody onto the dancefloor, coaxing warmth and soul from the production duo's instruments whilst opening track and first single 'Bleep1' bridges the gap between the dancefloor ready-to-go first album and more developed song structure of Unhuman. "It might piss off the purists who just want to hear techno tracks but this is the album that we wanted to make," adds Bryan. "We've come up with more vocal hooks on this album because when playing live its always more fun to scream into the microphone. We were quite keen to do something above and beyond and open up a new page. We wanted to set ourselves apart again."
Now, not even a full year from their debut album, the engine has been tweaked and polished for a smoother, more refined ride. Unhuman is released on March 26 in Europe. A special US release is planned for May 22.