CD: Motorama - Calendar | reviews, news & interviews
CD: Motorama - Calendar
CD: Motorama - Calendar
Russian five-piece hark back sweetly to post-punk gold
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/mast_image_landscape/public/mastimages/motorama.jpg?itok=Qc-P3VRM)
A little-known fact about reality, seldom touched upon by quantum physicists in recent years, is that there’s a wormhole between Manchester in September 1981 and the far western Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don in the present. This would seem to be the only explanation for Motorama.
Motorama’s second album opens with guitars of the purest jangle, initially hinting at an African flourish but settling into early Eighties post-punk, albeit tinted with a perkiness that might have been missing 30 years ago. The group is the vehicle of guitarist-vocalist Vladislav Parshin whose lyrics are often enigmatically opaque (“I spend my days sitting in front of the fireplace/You spend your days dying like a rose in a vase”) yet convey a weight of novelistic hidden meaning. He boasts a gloom-croon that hints at Ian Curtis but is richer and smoother, arch and less desperate. Most of all he has a delicious way with a song. While the sound of the band is uniform throughout, sticking to their chosen template grounded in a solid metronomic rhythm section, songs such as “Image”, “Rose in a Vase” and “To the South” are flecked with melodic sunshine, alongside hints of longing and sadness.
Like their Mancunian forerunners Motorama seem keen to represent themselves via stylistic imagery rather than band photographs. They are as enigmatic as their music but they do perform live and, in fact, are touring with the Spinto Band in France next February. Someone should bring them over to the UK, perhaps even have them play Manchester. Watch out, though: if they get sucked back down the wormhole and signed to Factory Records, it may induce some sort of musical-apocalyptic temporal cataclysm.
Watch the video for "To The South"
rating
Share this article
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more New music
![Peter Baumann in 1976, as he was on the cover of his first solo album 'Romance ’76' - before he left Tangerine Dream](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Peter%20Baumann%20-%20Phase%20By%20Phase%20The%20Virgin%20Albums_header_1000.jpg?itok=EzsjhNAs)
![Scratch goes into space for the last time](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Lee%20Scratch%20Perry%20and%20Youth%20-%20Spaceship%20To%20Mars%20TAD.jpg?itok=s5kEO00o)
![Mercury Rev's 'Born Horses': mind-blowing](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/mercury%20rev%20born%20horses.jpg?itok=NjxK8lkR)
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/cover%20Galliano%20-%20Halfway%20Somewhere.jpg?itok=qPSPe5ZH)
!['Cave saddling up and riding through a misty land of choirs and strings'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/WildGod.jpg?itok=k073fxiu)
!['A remarkable experience of nostalgic romance and melancholic glamour from this cinematic star'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/PXL_20240824_201115220.jpg?itok=OVpiKCWg)
![blink-182 enchant with their performance of hits new and old](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/blinkfinal.jpg?itok=FZhU6D-j)
!['Zenón doesn’t do in-your-face polemic; his ways are altogether cleverer and subtler'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Cover_Zen%C3%B3n_Golden_City_%20resize.jpg?itok=rS3bsW6-)
!['This was about jazz and its offshoots still surging with life and still pushing against boundaries'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/WOH2024_LaurenLuxenberg_S8A5347.jpg?itok=9AReosNS)
![Shadowplay, with main-man Brandi Ifgray at the front](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Shadowplay_Header_1000_Stupido%20Records%20Jouko%20Lehtola.jpg?itok=P8CwWd4j)
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/659de5ec82182e3a83f4a9ed045ee50dee9b577e1eda46200bbd8c5b051944e2.jpg?itok=9EGs30UR)
![The new New Age gathers](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/medfest1.jpg?itok=0M9Qf3Yt)
Add comment