Couch — Figur 5
(June 2006)
Morr Music 067
www.morrmusic.com
www.couchmusik.de
www.myspace.com/couchmusik
Here is the scenario. You just went out and bought Couch’s new album. A bright and shiny new magic music circle. You place it into your home stereo component which is in the living room of your home which is in a city or a town it doesn’t matter which but it does matter that it is fall or possibly winter but that doesn’t really matter either as long as there is something falling from the sky but not falling straight down but more like drifting and you can see all the things that are drifting from the three windows that are in your living room of your home but don’t pay too much attention to them because we’re doing something else now but it is important that you know they are there. You now see that there is a video camera on a tripod on the floor of your home next to the couch that you are about to sit down on which is also on the floor and the couch is comfortable and also you are wearing your favorite V-neck sweater which is also comfortable and makes you kind of hug yourself a little. The camera is pointed at the television and you can see on the television many many versions of the television which is in the living room of your home getting smaller and smaller forever until the television and the living room are a pixelated blur and you think that maybe if there was even just one more television and living room that the camera may explode or melt. And you are sitting on the couch which is on the floor of your home and Couch is playing on the stereo which is on a table on the floor of your home and you are drifting.
The Velvet Teen — Cum Laude
(July 2006)
Slowdance 028
www.slowdance.com
www.thevelvetteen.com
The Velvet Teen are an emo band, but only in the same sense that Sunny Day Real Estate were an emo band. In other words, the music is evocative, compelling and rich with dramatic moments of auditory cataclysm. Judah Nagler and company do their best to switch up their sound on each album. Their previous album,
Elysium, put piano in place of the conventional guitar, added lush string arrangements and focused on vocal layering. This time, Casey Deitz's drumwork sounds like a battlefield and any space that happens to be left over is swallowed up by jittery, spastic programmed elements that flit about your head like flies over meat, leaving the vocals to wallow in their own almost over-effected dinginess. Sometimes, like on "Gyzmkid," the sound is so utterly dense that your ears are doing double and triple-takes. It is the climax and the masterpiece of a quick but satisfying album. These kids are being modest with their choice of album title.
