Wald, Oska
Motel Reno
Welcome to Motel Reno, located on a purgatorial stretch of the Highway to Hell, where amenities include cable TV, a doormat for dusting your cowboy boots, running water that mostly works, a bed with a pillow and a couple of blankets with mysterious stains - well, OK, not much, but enough to start a series of dreams, good and bad... Oska Wald, frontman of Berlin garage band Chuckamuck, heard here now on his solo debut. "Motel Reno" offers old-fashioned lo-fi neo-folk craft and reminds us that the art of songwriting may have another day to live. And maybe that's all we can really ask for in these troubled times. Wald gets to the bottom of things, then comes back to the surface with the hope and irony we need to breathe. The Eagles may have their Hotel California, Leonard Cohen his Chelsea Hotel, but Motel Reno will always be Oska Wald's second home.