Peter Woodburn
There is something going on in Motion Turns It On’s album Kaleidoscopic Equinox. There is a lot going on. And sometimes it is almost too much to take in at once.
The trio take the idea of the instrumental post-rock genre and put it on the liquefy setting of an industrial-sized blender. This is some intense stuff, for sure. Not intense in an angry way, though. Intense in the way that Motion Turns It On’s schizophrenic, frenetic energy leaves you on teetering precariously on the wall of sanity. If Humpty Dumpty sat on this wall when he fell his pieces, he would’ve sprouted legs and ran off in different directions as violently as possible.
Bizarre math rock drumming beats from Steve Smith and time signature changes are the keys here. The guitars echo The Mars Volta’s initial days, spastic and in your face. But not in such a way that is ultimately uncomfortable or condescending. Vocalists Andres Londono and William Kenny use their vocal chords as just another realm to the madness, layering distorted and non-intelligible lyrics all over.
Songs like “Lon Pido Con Piedad” slow the tempo down a bit, but the madness level stays the same. Madness — that is the most appropriate word to describe Kaleidoscopic Equinox. And if a kaleidoscopic equinox is what I imagine it to be, akin to staring at the sun, madness is probably the expected result. This album is like a test in that regard; it’s just a matter of how much you can put down in one sitting.
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