Wye Oak at MoMo Rotterdam. Photo: Beppe Simone

Rotterdam’s Motel Mozaique 2018: Wye Oak, Martin Kohlstedt, Henry Green and more

Wye Oak, Martin Kohlstedt, Henry Green, Faces on TV, Charlotte Day Wilson, James Elkington

Motel Mozaique has been going on for 18 years now, and this year’s edition felt like summer with a warm and sunny weekend.  Culturaal covered the 2017 edition here, so this time we will just cover six artists we discovered and enjoyed.

Wye Oak

They are an American indie band from Baltimore in Maryland and they are named after the largest white oak tree in the United States. Some of their sounds were similar to the music of Stranger Things. They performed at Arminius church, a wonderful Protestant church with beautiful wooden interiors and they created an amazing atmosphere with their sound. This song has a wonderful title: “The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs.”


Martin Kohlstedt

Kohlstedt is a pianist and composer hailing from Germany. His performance was astonishing. His interaction with the audience was also peculiar in the sense that he really wanted to make a connection, as he improvises a lot during his concerts. In his Ted Talk he explains how he has created many modules, music equivalents to words, consisting of melody parts, chords, motives and loops. Here’s a recording of one of his live tracks.

Henry Green

Henry Green is a young English artist from Bristol. Playing electronica in a church is not easy, as its acoustics do not lend itself easily to this genre. He plays with a band and they made a great cover of MGMT’s song Electric Feel. He just released a new album titled ‘Shift’ that you can listen on Spotify.

James Elkington

Elkington is a steel guitarist who performed with Jeff Tweedy and has a unique sound and tunes his guitar in a novel way. He warmed the audience at the atmospheric Paradijskerk.

Faces on TV

They come from Belgium, and they played an energetic set at packed Rotown. They’re a band with plenty of ideas and they are never boring.

Charlotte Day Wilson

She is a Canadian singer mixing pop, blues and soul with a warm voice that also performed and enchanted the audience at Paradijskerk.

Many more artists played and performed at Motel Mozaique. You can comment below and share your favourite ones. Save the date for next year 18-21 April 2019 and keep an eye on upcoming concerts here.

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