Rockbites: Couch release subtle, downtempo diamond

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April 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Couch release subtle, downtempo diamond
30 April 2001

Profane, the fourth album by German minimalist instrumental band Couch, appeared earlier this month in the the US on Matador, and simultaneously in the UK and Europe on Kitty-Yo. It follows 1999’s Fantasy, the first Couch album that added keyboards to their drum/bass/guitar lineup and the first released domestically in the US.
    For Profane, the quartet of keyboardist Stefanie Böhm, drummer Thomas Geltinger, bass player Michael Heilrath, and guitarist Jürgen Söder are joined by a trio of guests who delicately expand the album’s tonal landscape while preserving Couch’s sparse, downtempo, and slightly surrealist esthetic. Micha Acher of Tied+Tickled Trio and The Notwist adds cornet, Mathis Mayr of Alles Wie Gross plays cello, and Salewski of Merricks contributes percussion.
    Couch songs are extraordinarily hypnotic and profound, an effect achieved through musically crafty repetition and the finest attention to timbral detail. The band clearly revel in the infinite depth of a single acoustic guitar note (such as on the track Meine Marke), as well as in the emotional energy of a guitar/bass/drums rock attack (as on Kurzer Punkt). Yet even on their noisier numbers, they manage to create as much tonal subtlety and interest as your ears might choose to navigate.
    Couch’s exaggerated musical repetitiveness can be disconcerting to the uninitiated. On the track Doch Englich, the percussion for the first two and a half minutes of the song is nothing but a cymbal being struck on its bell insistently every quarter note. Their approach might evoke, in varying ways and degrees, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Adventures In Stereo. But unlike them, Couch seem to have fun with their own agenda, first frustrating our expectations and then, just when we think we have them pegged, flipping things inside out again.
    Many bands enjoy playing with the soft/loud and gentle/aggresive dichotomies. Couch are masters of the more subtle and more interesting soporific/surprise dichotomy. Four bites out of five.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

Couch arrive Stateside on Friday for a two week US and Canada tour. Here are the dates

May
  4 - New York (Knitting Factory)
  5 - Hoboken (Maxwell’s)
  6 - Boston (TT the Bears)
  7 - Montreal (Casa del Popolo)
  8 - Toronto (Horseshow Tavern)
  9 - Detroit (Gold Dollar)
10 - Cleveland (Beachland Ballroom)
11 - Chicago (Schubas / Noise Pop Festival)
12 - Minneapolis (7th Street Entry)
15 - Seattle (Paradox / Breakroom)
16 - Vancouver (Starfish Room)
17 - Portland (Pine Street / Lola)
18 - San Francisco (Bottom of the Hill)
19 - Los Angeles (Troubadour)
| Couch on Matador Records | | bio | | discography | | CD | | top of page |

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