Ms John Soda is the duo of Stefanie Böhm (Couch) and Micha Acher (The Notwist, Tied + Tickled Trio) in a most agreeable and expansive pop environment. The diversity of the four songs on this EP (featuring Böhm's vocals on three of them) makes for an interesting yet all too brief listen, especially when there's a full length release just around the corner.
The rhythmically-solid "Go Check" is a pop song of distorted congas, fuzzy quasi-surf guitar lines and droning keyboards under Böhm's melodic vocals. The warm sounding "Done Twice" floats along as a multi-layered keyboard based tune with breathy vocals that overall makes for a nice lullaby. The tranquil "Solid Ground (Piano Version)" is, as the title suggests, a solo piano version of "Solid Ground" on the forthcoming album, which moves gracefully throughout the composition. The eight-minute plus "Elusive (Remix)" is a remix of the album track by the duo Jersey. Here, it's vocally, a gloomy retrospect that builds from a percolating keyboard, layered with bass and Rhodes, with a nice break that introduces the acoustic guitar and laid back drums. The song makes for that great, repetitive, pop-ish closer. Now I'm interested to hear the original version having heard the remix first.
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