There is something refreshingly subversive about creating an album that resists all conventions of contemporary music. Not the obnoxious, leather-jacket kind of rebellious, nor the “rock is coming back!” marketing pitch every label apparently has to trot out every six months. Home, the debut record by motko is rebellious because it trusts that you will be able to sit for over forty minutes without feeling the need for a 30-second dopamine injection.
Behind motko is Shorty, previously a member of such acts as Millhouse, Symbiosis, and IONS before branching out to put together a record completely on his own. What he has assembled is an 9-track alt-rock affair that has absolutely no intention of fighting for your attention. It’s an album waiting for you to pull up a chair and this is a vital distinction.
Streaming has trained an entire generation of artists to front-load the most crucial moments on their records. The opening 30 seconds need to hook you. Choruses need to be made for playlists. Every song needs to be a standalone piece of art because there’s only so good a shot that Track 6 will even get to be heard. Home seems to exist as a direct counterpoint to this notion.
Instead of diving headfirst into the record, the opener “wake up,” followed by “ready when you are,” and “birds were telling us all the time” take an unhurried time developing the texture of the album. “wake up” begins very carefully, more like someone coaxing themselves to open their eyes to a new morning than slamming the door open to start their day. The guitars are built from textures more than riffs; the rhythm section opts for atmosphere over driving propulsion, until, slowly, you realize that the waiting for “the song to start” has subsided and this is the song.
“ready when you are” continues this illusion of languidness until you suddenly realize you’ve become deeply fascinated by tiny musical decisions, like a subtly delayed phrase or a quiet crescendo. It’s music made to reward observation without ever demanding it.
Then, with the inclusion of “birds were telling us all the time,”, we get what feels like the point where home finds its voice. It shifts from being a collection of separate songs into something of an emotional landscape; transitions and atmospheric nuances take prominence and you realize you’re drifting through actual space as opposed to just listening to sound.
Describing it as “cinematic” feels a bit too easy for an album built in this way, as so many indie albums these days receive that designation-but home genuinely fits the bill. Not in the sense of an accompanying film score, but rather because it shares with film a reverence for pacing. Silence means something. Space means something.
Not every emotional climax needs an orchestra announcing its arrival.
The lead single “old” encapsulates this idea perfectly, gradually building into a refrain with an extraordinary amount of restraint; nothing about it begs for a huge, modern rock climax that most albums would otherwise push for. The song feels heavy with memory, weighty with emotion, but it’s held firmly within its delicate structure, which makes it all the more effective. And it’s one of the best tracks on the record for precisely that reason.
The remaining tracks “liberation,” “sailing,” “love,” “wellness” and “you better run,” continue this exploration of distance, belonging, and reminiscence, all without falling over themselves trying to vary stylistic approaches for their own sake. They all fit cohesively into the album’s emotional world, each song feeling like an individual room inside the same house. This cohesion is also what prevents home from being a one-size-fits-all affair.
If you’re looking for a record loaded with singles that are immediately gratifying or sound like they’re made for a 15-second TikTok edit, you will struggle with home. But criticizing it for those things feels like reviewing a novel on the basis that it isn’t a tweet. This album is not trying to be discovered by an algorithm. If anything, it’s trying to invite you in.
It’s a more difficult thing, and home largely succeeds by remembering something many artists have lost along the way; atmosphere isn’t about emptiness, it’s about storytelling. The silent moments on home aren’t filler between ideas; they ARE the ideas. Like the best examples of jazz, there’s emphasis on notes not being played in a way to highlight the negative space of music and emotion found in it.
It’s an awfully confident statement for a debut record, and it shows Shorty is not interested in writing an album meant to own a playlist. He’s trying to build something that lives with you after you’ve put the headphones down. And that’s sometimes the greatest achievement of all.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
