The Casting Couch is following up their 5 Songs EP with a full-length release, Row Your Boat, the result of long weeks and late nights in three different studio spaces with engineer/co-producer Chris Bishop (Radium Recordings, Athens, GA) earlier this year. “The musical equivalent of a triple-shot espresso, The Casting Couch’s ‘Row Your Boat’ is unabashed sunshine twee pop rife with lush harmonies and a gorgeously ethereal bridge,” writes Austinist.com’s Allen Y Chen (August 2005) about the title track, which also appears on i eat records’ compilation Appetizers & Leftovers. With their typical ecclectism, the Couch also offer up more plaintive, alt-country oriented songs like “Replaced,” as well as the symphonic pop of songs like “Song About Dying.”

This past summer, the band also took advantage of their roots in Athens, GA, to win fans throughout the southeast on a tour to their former home and back. In Austin, The Casting Couch have played alongside more nationally established acts, being deemed “the perfect accompaniment to Architecture in Helsinki” by The Austin Chronicle’s Darcie Stevens (July 2005) in addition to sharing the stage with Will Sheff of Okkervil River and Minus Story. Following their Row Your Boat CD release show at Carousel Lounge on December 10 with Orange Mothers, The Casting Couch will again tour nationally in March 2006, heading out through the Midwest and returning through familiar territory in the southeast, just in time for SXSW.