Staten Island Advance Entertainment (AWE) December 6, 2007


This is the text only version:

Soundbites

by Ben Johnson
Thursday December 06, 2007, 1:00 AM

Trish & Christoph
 "Christmas EP"

For those who know T&C as the funny and creative pair who regularly perform songs with PowerPoint-aided presentations at the ETG Book Cafe, the duo's "Christmas EP" will not surprise as much as satisfy. It's got the same self-deprecating, tough-love humor for, by and of the North Shore. The same untrained musicianship renders moments of beauty, like on "Stile Nacht, Heilige Nacht," where dirgey, droning keyboards and guitars and the duo's harmony in German is enriched by found sounds like the hiss of spraypaint bottles, car alarms and what is almost certainly the creaking and clanking of the Staten Island Ferry as it docks in St. George. For those who don't know this duo, their new recording is a perfect introduction -- a must-buy for Staten Islanders. "Blue Christmas," with its Elvis-like crooning from Christoph and speaking and singing from Meg White-ish Trish ("Remember when you told me about your dream of moovin' to Jeerzee, when we were standin' in loine, at Ben and Jerry's at South Beach?"), is hilarious and fun to listen to, and the Tom Waits-like waltz of "The First Noel" is a keeper as well. S.I. folk should get hip to T&C -- they're a local treasure for sure.