Like food that includes the word "food" in its name, anything with "project" slapped on the label sets off alarms. "Here, try some of this genetically modified beef-- it's a little project of mine." Alarms. "Hey! You haven't met my new wife yet? She's downstairs... it's sort of a project I've been working on." And the word seldom bodes well for music: Alan Parsons Project, anyone? So, naturally, I found the inauspiciously self-described part-time "pop project" of Couch's Stephanie Bohm and Notwist alum Micha Acher better than most bands' "full-time" work. Without exception, every moment of Ms. John Soda's electro-pop masterpiece, No P. or D., greeted me with serene vocals, rich, deep melodies, and nary an alarm in earshot.

The aim here is deceptively simple: a blessed union of the classical and the modern gives birth to blissful pop. Glitches and clicks lie in wait beneath calmly plucked strings while a lone piano quietly navigates a sea of hisses and hums; the organic and inorganic pieces flow together in crests and troughs, but the whole is nothing less than seamless. The theory is nothing new-- The Notwist, Lali Puna, and +/-, among others, worked brilliantly with this dynamic-- but that comparison can only obfuscate the purpose of No P. or D. This project is no experiment; it's fantastically accessible pop music flaunting IDM lingerie.

The joy and deception of this album lies beneath a mild, melodic veneer. Like most great pop works, No P. or D. can be enjoyed with as much or as little of the brain as desired. The thought-averse among you will be lulled into glorious insulin shock, allowing the girls' crisp, phoenetic vocals and soothing tones to cascade and break over you, but the intricacy lying in wait cannot be ignored. The detail and the subtlety slowly, inexorably worms its way into the mind, no matter how passively the album is approached. It's not a complicated procedure to dissect these melodies, but neither is it a quick one, as each song builds slowly and deliberately, layering elements atop one another, and leisurely anti-climaxing before pausing to restructure, again and again. Even as the pacing of the album varies across fairly vast emotional terrain, it develops as though it had all the time in the world.

In fact, there's a practiced, almost Taoist ease throughout-- depth without being Deep, simplicity without being Simple-- and it's hard not to walk away from the album without a sense of well-being. By way of example, "Solid Ground" is effortlessly grand: a slight piano refrain and angelic vocals leave no mystery as to the song's sentiment. Its heart is on its sleeve, but such immediate accessibility doesn't begin to foretell the comparative depth of the multi-layered beep sequences floating underneath. It's not by any means an intellectual overload, but again, it offers itself up to any attentive listener like a gift, and the effect is truly ingenious. Amazingly, though, "Solid Ground" is merely first among equals. Every track on No P. or D. reveals itself with breathtaking assuredness. For one song to be so striking is worthy of acclaim; that the majority of the album can be similarly described is a testament to its wonder in no uncertain terms.

-Eric Carr, January 7th, 2003