Playlist - Sign of the Times with Couch Prints - slumber mag

After putting out a slew of one-off singles in recent years, New York City’s Couch Prints released their first EP Waterfall today. Once a summer, trans-Atlantic collaboration between two childhood friends, the group found its start slowly, gradually changing and formalizing over the course of the pandemic. However, even as Tik Tok and the current industry prioritize the production of singles, there’s a unique satisfaction to seeing a band put forward a longer thought-out release. In giving themselves more room, the band’s spacious arrangements, and driving hooks feel supported and complimented, ultimately giving the duo a cohesive and impressive debut.

We asked Couch Prints to create a playlist ahead of their EP Waterfall. The resulting mix is based on one’s coming of age and their first attempt to understand their larger place in the world. Read the band’s statement on their picks, give it a listen, and order the band’s new EP Waterfall below.

Growing up I had a deep conviction that the malls and movie theaters I spent all my hours in were absolute. Time wasn’t a flat circle, it simply didn’t exist. I envisioned a long life rolling from Qdoba (TM) to Qdoba (TM), one Skullcandy Ink’d (TM) earbud swinging lazily and counting out the minutes, tick tock tick tock… At some point, I left my hometown and spent time in one of those global cosmopolitan cities that young adults are rapidly re-populating. I developed a disgust for all things suburban, for those mid-brow, fast-casual locations where post-Fordist triumph is felt most heavily.

This playlist is for that first realization, that first bite from the tree of knowledge that puts where you’re from into the larger cultural context and threatens your halcyon days forever. For what it’s worth, I’ve since shaken that pretension. In a world with so much context, with so much contradiction between our ideals and reality, I’ve started eating Qdoba again.