Labels: Coffee Beat Records
Review by: Michael McCann
Have you ever reminisced about all of the beds you’ve slept in? I have. I think I remember all of the beds I’ve ever slept in in my whole life. It’s not many. Slept in though, not fucked in, or puked/shat on, or if you’ve ever had a cheeky nap someplace. I mean slept in, like spent substantial time, like half of your life – probably the better half of it. (I had to self censor some personal bed descriptions here for being incredibly dull and personal!) Maybe about six or seven in total anyway. Almost certainly a couple of them were sofas. But I know nothing about sofas compared to these guys, for they are sofa kings! Singular, actually – Sofa King. ARGH! Shat that right up! Forget everything I just wrote.
So yeah, I don’t really know anything about being a Sofa King I must confess, but this is a pretty interesting cassette tape indeed. The first thing that struck me is that it comes with this shitty folded postcard as the cover with the band name written all over it in biro and felt-tip. It’s awesome, especially when you learn that every one of these is unique! Maybe every tape is also, however, in this case side A holds all the songs on the little blue piece of plastic. Side B contains nothing but dead air. I listened to side B three times really, really intently, but it definitely wasn’t quite as catchy as side A was… I’m trying to read this postcard…
“Dearboth,
We have arrived resourcefully a little late though, The journey have been very enjoyable although I only had about ½ sleep on hard wooden leafs last night. Fistfuck men kept interrupting me during my turn on the luggage rack (most comfortable!) This morning (4.30am) I saw cologne and The Rhine valley it was beautiful. Most of the othersslept. This afternoon just as I was dogging we came to the mountains which were unbelievably like fairy tale mountains so again I didn’t sleep! Lots of love
Pam”
Well done, Pam! I don’t know how she managed to juggle sightseeing and dogging at the same time, but somehow she did it! And without sleep!
The songs we have on side A are pretty damn luggage rack also. I’m going to say the watch word here for this band is ‘cool’. These guys are so cool that the tape sounds effortlessly and ridiculously low-fi. I don’t think is an easy thing to do in this crazy fast paced age of palm pilots and Scientology, but aesthetically I find it pleasing. It’s like they just don’t care! Aside from that, what occurred to me is that there’s the faint whiff of Dinosaur Jr. about Sofa King, particularly on track 3, To The Park. It busts in with an incredibly catchy, highly embellished two chord riff which holds up fo’ most ‘o’ the song. But while J Mascis has been writing the same song over and over for the last few years Sofa King are imbued with some more current influences which present themselves surprisingly in the songs. Kind of like when that girl said “cunt” in Kick-Ass. There’s an abrasiveness to the way the songs are performed, with a couple of unexpected turns and some jumpy, sharp chords interspersed throughout. Nothing feels wasted. And they perform them with bags of energy also. Many parts are blast through and only happen for that one time, like the ascending vocal part in Sleepyland/Dreamworld that I really dig. It shows a confidence in their song writing ability and how well they can put their ideas together if even it’s over all too abruptly; no song here is over 2mins long and though I have no problem with that, it feels incredibly brief for something which really is quite enjoyable.
I think Pam could have done with a sofa.