Motelas

They say that secondary roads often make the journey more exciting. Dusty and generally less traveled roads, almost unknown to most. Those places where after every bend, the magic of the unknown can be revealed. Unique landscapes that unfold before our eyes as something new. Moving through American music tradition is not an easy task when it comes to avoid stylistic clichés. Integrating it´s true essence and make it one’s own, inevitably involves avoiding conventional roads.

Regular musicians in the San Sebastian scene, the paths of Alberto Bosch (bass) and Txenan Calvo (guitar), have run together over time in different projects and collaborations such as Los Patos, Blues Stop, or the well-remembered Lau Behi with keyboardist Mikel Azpiroz. In 2020, The Amendois leader Iñigo Elena “Helen” (vocals and lyrics) and Luma´s drummer Adrián Viñas joined the band, Motelas was born. A perfect place where four experienced musicians converge to develop their common influences, influences that became palpable in their first album in 2021, Sunset Tapes. An album recorded entirely live, with a raw, organic guitar and great melodies sound influenced by blues and American rock, with no more artifices than the quality of the band and their songs.

Again, recorded live again at Aitor Carrasquedo’s mobile studio, Rainbow Tapes shares the organic and stylistic quality of its predecessor. A record in which the band moves again with dexterity within American music melting pot. Classic blues rock, not exempt of pop melodies, psychedelic airs, and reminiscences to bands from the 70s. Structures perfectly assembled on the solid scaffolding of Txenan’s guitars, a perfect partnership between Alberto on bass and Adrian on drums and the vocal harmonies of the lyrics provided by Helen, work a completely new conceptual personality.

Rainbow Tapes features hammond organ on Aurpegia, a mid-tempo pop sung in Basque, a language always present in the band’s recordings. Devil Inside brings us Neil Young echoes, while Got It dark poetry opens a new range of possibilities close to psychedelia. Txenan’s wide guitar riffs catalog along Helen’s vocal harmonies contrast, constitute a large part of the band’s original sound, making clear a catalog of influences such as Wilco on Love Spiral or Drive-By Truckers with a Blues rock flavour on Rainbow Woman. Both Summer Street and Take It Easy are meant to be two true jewels on a compositional and literary level, two songs crowning the evolution of this band from San Sebastian on their second album.

Motelas synthesize and claim their own sound, far from mainstream conventions. Rainbow Tapes is a record full of poetry and guitars, an organic and genuinely American, but with the signature of a unique band, which has understood that integrating the essence of this music, almost always goes through avoiding the main roads.