That Motorik Beat

Lali Puna - Grin and Bear
Flowchart - Do Oscillators Have Wings
The Emperor Machine - Emperor Machine

Ultravox (and Jonathan Richman) are on the list of stuff to investigate next.

Magazine - The Light Pours Out At Me (militaristic motorik)

Magazine - The Light Pours Out At oF Me, i mean

bit disappointed "reason is treason" got disqualified..

Anyways, what now for the playlist?

There are Strokes songs, or parts of them, that fit the bill here but titles are escaping me.

wow, amazing how much that Supremes song sounds like Stereolab!

There are a bunch of songs off of Sugar's Copper Blue album that seem like heavy versions of the motorik beat

I can't have Kasabian in the house.

Spotify playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/nathanwoolls/playlist/4MRKHpOR6zsjHTJiKKwvdI

xpost really? not even just that one track?

Where's Point That Thing Somewhere Else?

As mentioned above, "LA Woman"

Haven't read or thought about this thread in while but seems like it might be an interesting thought experiment to ponder why, say, The beat on Ramones songs is not quite motorik.

Right on. That's not a bad point, but atm all I have to offer are a couple more examples:

ST37, "Hallohero" (obv)
Dead Skeletons, "Lifou!/Live!"

Xp Too much cymbal action, drums not loud enough in the mix

That's a good start. Also seems to me that there is an extra big wait for the two and four, so I hear it as "and one and *big gap* TWO and three and *big gap* FOUR." I guess after the two and four as well. Maybe it feels like the eight note "ands" of the beat are all gravitating a hair closer to the one and three.

I mean that's what the motorik sounds like

maybe
Built To Spill - Goin' Against Your Mind
Holy Fuck - The Pulse

think there's another queens of the stone age track too but I can't remember it off the top of my head

Avon maybe?

Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems to me Tommy Ramone's beats were pretty much just 1-2-3-4 on the kick drum, the 8th notes mostly came from Johnny's guitar. Where motorik beats are very precise with the 8th-note kicks. Also, motorik stuff deliberately pushes the beat forward, not quite getting ahead of it but almost. Which is why it feels so different from soul/R&B grooves, which tend to lay back and even drag the beat.

I have to re-listen to this to make sure it counts but:

Blue Oyster Cult - Hungry Boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqaMEMIBPIw

Kit and Holly by Echoboy! How did I only just remember that. The hi-hat occasionally moves out of motorik, but the essence is there pretty strongly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_SAMrDnXOE

i love this thread! but i gotta ask, will someone attempt a mega-mix of 3 or 4 hours with all these songs once the submissions slow down or will i have to do my best to do it with a dj software that takes care of the beat matching for me.

The Clean thirded.

I don't know if this qualifies in full but Hospitality mix some motorik into their cover of Rikki Don't Lose That Number. It's worth wading through the Starbucks ad and intro 'cos the cover is excellent.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/hospitality-covers-steely-dan,70705/

tempted to mention abacab/illegal alien by genesis. plenty of motorik action for phil at that time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrK05cNYfdg

http://sickmouthy.com/2012/06/19/top-ten-songs-with-the-motorik-beat/

Cheers all for input.

the snare hit falling on the third beat in the bar, and then being followed by three consecutive kick-drum hits, gives the illusion that the snare is falling on the end of the bar when it’s actually running ahead of the beat,

no offense dude, but i have no idea what this means. the snare is on 2 & 4, just like in...everything.

Shit yeah, I'm counting half beats. Serves me right for composing that bit in bed.

Also just not having a clue what I'm talking about.

Think he got confused but that discussion we once had about how to count reggae, Jordan.

haha

I think the "motorik beat" is a red herring. A motorik feeling is just as much about what the bass is doing, the actual sound of the drums (dry and tight), limited harmonic movement, and how the guitar, synths, or vocals are floating on top, as it is about the basic drum pattern. You can play that same drum pattern in a way that doesn't sound motorik at all, or you could make a song with a different drum beat that still sounds very motorik.

yeah i think it is about the interaction of instruments more than it is the drums.

I wouldn't say it's a red herring, but the beat is certainly only part of the motorik 'feel', and it's flexible; I was v. close to including stuff like There There or These Are My Twisted Words by Radiohead, which 'feel' like motorik to me but which use much jazzier (to my non-musician ears) drum patterns.

A "fake krautrock" playlist would include much more stuff that strays well away from the pattern outlined above, but feel just as 'of a piece'.

Any "motorik top 10" that doesn't include Stereolab is already false motorik to me, TBH

Julian Cope - Necropolis

I just never really got Stereolab.

Did this in '04 in one of the (terrific) Rough Guide to... threads

The Rough Guide to Motorik

1. [10:07] Neu! - Hallogallo (1972)
2. [04:37] Velvet Underground - I’m waiting for the man (1967)
3. [03:33] The Stooges - Loose (1970)
4. [03:36] The Beach Boys - Heroes and Villains (1967)
5. [06:30] Kraftwerk - Autobahn (single edit) (1974)
6. [02:07] La Düsseldorf - White Overalls (1978)
7. [07:07] Harmonia - Monza (1975)
8. [03:50] Chrome - Chromosome Damage (1977)
9. [03:20] The Normal - Warm Leatherette (1978)
10. [07:27] Tall Dwarfs - Neusyland (1994)
11. [05:25] The Clean - Point That Thing Somewhere Else (1981)
12. [04:45] Talking Heads - Crosseyed and Painless (1980)
13. [04:27] Mense Reents - It Didn’t Matter (2003)
14. [03:02] Queens of the Stone Age - Go With the Flow (2002)
15. [04:16] Zoot Woman - Grey Day (2003)
16. [06:23] Tied & Tickled Trio - Motorik (2003)

Needs the Glitter Band/ Gary Glitter

... doesn't need Stereolab

Fuckin amazing willem.

Omitting Stereolab from a motorik best-of just seems like entry level challops TBH.

But maybe that's the point, trying to construct a playlist w/o the obvious names? But seems like when someone has done that, it ends up with a bunch of lumpen, dude-ish rock which makes me doubt and think "hey maybe I don't really like motorik after all, maybe it was just Stereolab I liked all along."

Which is crazy talk! Because when I listen to Jenny Ondioline and Be Sure To Loop and Opa Loka and even bands like Quickspace or Secret Machines/SVIIB doing a motorik, man, motorik is my favourite thing in the world! It is light and streamlined and joyful and propulsive! The moral of the story is, it's just lumpen dude-ishness I dislike in any genre. (this is not even a gender complaint before people take it as one - I always found Electralane to be lumpen and dude-ish, too which is in itself a minor motorik challop.)

W/e obv Stereolab is sorely missed but to look at that playlist and act like all the obv motorik bands were challoply left out is just daft (tho I just realized Boredoms is missing too)

That being said, I love Feather Float and want to listen to it now, bcz I never registered 'Loop' as motorik before, so that's cool...

I do agree that Stereolab deserves a place on any motorik list though

If you'd made these suggestions a week ago, Cheesecake, they'd have probably got in!