Couch
Profane

Band from Munich active since 1995. Michael Heilrath, bass, Jürgen Söder, guitar, and Thomas Geltinger on drums. In 1999, for the album "Fantasy," Stephanie Böhm (also in Ms. John Soda) joined and brought her keyboard.

For convenience, they are linked to the Weilheim scene, for their songs touched by electronics, for the analog/digital contamination. This is the fourth album, entirely instrumental. Michael Heilrath, the main composer of the pieces, explains in an interview how at the base of each composition there is always a basic idea that manifests itself in a melody or rhythm and develops into a riff, few repeated notes upon which the song develops. Bands like Tortoise come to mind but in a rock version, bands like Kinski but a little groovier. Shoegaze passages come to mind.

The titles play their part, the only "message" fully expressed. "Plan," "Alle auf Pause" (everyone on pause), "12 sind nur 4" (12 is only 4). And it's a message not easily decipherable but in some way suggestive. I know there is meaning, I can find it, I can adapt it. One starts to think what the starting point might be. What is my plan?

"Alle auf Pause" is one of the most beautiful songs for groove and melody that I've heard recently, two piano chords beat in the background. And then it opens like a flower. Eternal. And then starts again. It's been spinning in my head for days. "Was Alles Hält" is a whispered electronic moment. "Kurzer Punkt" has the same magnificent rage as Massimo Volume. "Doch Endlich" (finally) takes a while to grow to reach the point. Then the guitars start to rise lightly and twist more and more in the three notes. The tension rises slowly. Something happens at 3:30 but not the "finally" I thought it would be. I think of Mogwai. It closes with "Farbe" (color) and it is like the title. The washed-out colors of the cover.

Instrumental music but not background music. A beautiful album. Everyone on pause.