Couch Baby - Champagne on Ice

Couch Baby

Champagne on Ice
Plastic Sun Records; 2015

3.8 out of 5

By J Simpson

Champagne On Ice by Couch Baby is a beautifully concise statement from LA multi-instrumentalist Stefan Weich, perfect for the lazy swaying days of spring and early summer. 

Champagne On Ice is both warm and intimate, while being detached and elegant at the same time. The strumming hypnotic guitars and ascending organs might be seen as the natural world - trees waving in the breeze, an eddy of sand racing across the beach, while Weich's vocals might be the human component, half a mile away and drifting. 

This is the sound of a drifter, a dreamer - someone who takes the world in, and transforms it into art, or at least their experience of it. Stefan Weich seems like a true artist, and an actual, honest-to-goodness good person, as is suggested from "Get's What Mine" where he sings, "I want to be righteous/I want to keep the devil inside," but fear not, this is not the meanderings of a religious zealot. Weich wants the best of both worlds - this, and the next, as we hear with the line, "I want to get what's mine." 

Another striking dichotomy, another shattered duality. Being both holy AND earthy? Warm but cool? Too often, in art, there is a tendency to focus on one particular aspect of the human experience, i.e., "this is my sad music." I feel like that attitude is simply for the sake of marketing, making it easier to package and sell.

NOBODY is sad all the time (well, some are, whether due to horribly tragic circumstances or a chemical unbalance). But, for the most part, most of us have a rich, complex, layered inner existence to match the multifold wonders of creation. 

So if you're looking forward to the spring, but still remember the winter chills; If you know what it is to be happy AND sad, to feel like laughing and crying at the same time. Or, if you just like the sounds of gentle, psychedelic guitars and wispy reverbed vocals from the mind and hands of one talented individual, get it here!

Tweet