Odd Couple

In the organizer's words:

Rush hour of life: Odd Couple and the eternally beating heart of being human

In times when reality disappears behind filtered images and music is increasingly shaped by algorithms, Odd Couple present a warm and colorful album with their new album "Rush-Hour of Life", which is reminiscent of a time when music was still handmade - raw, playful, flawed and therefore convincing.

The result is a medicine against digital surfaces and abbreviated content. Listening to this album is like taking a trip, but not to escape reality, but to feel more of the depth of the moment again.

To the question "Who is speaking here?" one would have to answer: This is the talented, creative Berlin between the ages of 28 and 34, which, as in every new phase of life, finds itself confronted with the question of what damn course it should set for such a fluid life. How does the supposed "rush hour of life" go as a busy musician, sometimes badly slowed down by a pandemic?

This album bears witness to the gaps in purpose optimization and proves that there are anarchic thoughts and feelings in life that no Instagram slogan can help with. Odd Couple prefer to ask us lots of questions. Between the question of whether to become a father and the sudden loss of one's own. Between the longing for something lasting and the realization that the years - this rush hour - fly by without you perhaps ever arriving. Odd Couple also expose their vulnerability here. They sing about Berlin, this city that can be anything and yet is often nothing - except a place where you bravely endure your freedom and can't know whether it will be the place forever or whether it will end up being a phase.

The ideas for this album have been floating around for four years, in the heads of the two musicians, through their hard drives and finally across the country, sent back and forth between Berlin and Cologne. A patchwork of fragments from which Tammo and Jascha have put together a great whole like true alchemists. But not in the sense of a slick production, but in the sincerity of a demo album that breathes the intimacy of a home studio. There is no glossy façade, no polished perfection - and that is intentional.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that a bit of the early "Die Sterne" sound shines through in "Rush-Hour des Lebens". It will be the irrepressible love of fuzz guitars, strong hooks and well-garnished synths and naturally interlaced 90s beats that help to give the lyrics their full radiance. In general, it's brilliant thoughts that Odd Couple share with us here. I mean, who comes up with titles like "Houses are stupid"?

Strong garage-rock structures prove here that external producers can be happy these days if they are even approached by bands of Odd Couple and similar caliber. The musical landscape of this album is as fragmented as life itself. Nothing is smoothed out here, nothing is bent into shape - and that is incredibly inspiring to listen to. It's a cornucopia of unbridled production fun and lyrics that have perhaps fallen out of the ether somewhere, which almost magically make sense, sometimes surprising the band themselves.

The production is playful, muscular and spectral. The drum tracks were recorded with two microphones, the vocal tracks partly sung directly in front of the computer. Olaf Opal, the old friend and producer, brought his magic to the production in an uncharacteristically subtle way this time, without stifling the core of immediacy.

Some things just can't be killed off. The love of tinkering, the big questions about life like "Am I in the right place?" or the passion for rock music remain a refrain of humanity through albums like this one, a refrain that we can repeat over and over again with new voices and to which we listen entranced in Odd Couples Fall. This record grounds, excites and inspires. If you're lucky, one heart beats in an album - this one has two.

Presented by ByteFM & Visions

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