From Bed to Couch doesn't sound like a very ambitious title-indeed, it sounds suspiciously like one of those Monday mornings (or evenings) we're all too familiar with, where we leave one mattress only to collapse into yet another. But think again. Jacopo Carreras' debut album is no chillout fodder: it's an arresting, invigorating, sprawling piece of work that dares to challenge the status quo of contemporary dance music-not as negation, but as a kind of radically inclusive embrace of all kinds of electronically manipulated sound. It's occasionally manic, and unusually focused. (Just as importantly, it sounds thrilling.) And if you thought Berlin's Lan Muzic was a minimal label, think again, again: its first artist album, From Bed to Couch is a wildly inventive amalgam of house, techno, rock, breakbeats, experimental electronics and brain-jarring noise that sounds like nothing else you've heard. You may detect echoes of Alter Ego, Radiohead, Autechre, Steve Reich, Mouse on Mars or Plastikman-not, it must be said, influences you often find lumped together-but you've never heard them combined with such fluency and finesse. Born in Rome, based in Berlin, Jacopo Carreras' biography is as unusual as his music. It veers from high school rock bands to DJing house parties to playing bass in jazz ensembles to, most recently, full-blast live sets at clubs like Panorama Bar. Jacopo's curiosity has taken him from from studying aeronautical engineering to political philosophy to advanced computer music. It's probably no surprise that Jacopo designed much of the software he uses on the album-a back-to-basics approach that yields results far more complex than your typical Ableton fare. (Even more unusually, many of Jacopo's own patches are included as bonus material on the CD, in the form of Pluggo plug-ins.) But don't be intimidated. At the core of the album are six monster techno tracks-gargantuan jams unlike anything else coming out of Berlin today, or anywhere else, for that matter. Acidic sequences, muscular bass lines, ragged hi-hats, storm-tossed hand drums, delicate piano arpeggios-all fused as if with a welder's torch into forms that are as supple as they are massive. (Think of Richard Serra's ominous slabs, combined with Frank Gehry's rippling surfaces.) Made with the club in mind, they're a DJ's dream, but they carry their energy with them wherever they're played. Rounding out the album-a record whose sense of flow makes you strain to remember the last time you heard a full-length with this kind of arc, this defiant sense of purpose-are five more cuts that diverge from a 4/4 sensibility to pursue different trajectories at different tempos, from the cascading rock blasts of the opening "Rox Tox" to the gentle spasms of "Schi-is" to the Philip-Glass-meets-Raymond-Scott skitter of "Gamoolosi." Ultimately, you'll bring to the album your own reference points and your own prejudices. That's always the case; what's different about From Bed to Couch is the way the record chooses to engage them, not by pretending to tell you what you think you know, but by asking for your active participation in piecing together a new kind of sound-reality. Does that sound grandiose? Doesn't matter; this is a different kind of album, a different kind of music, made by a very different kind of artist. Take it as you will; just don't take it lying down. From Bed to Couch is accompanied by a three-track vinyl single featuring the album cut "One Sentence," the exclusive B-side "Manky," and a streamlined, high-intensity remix of "One Sentence" by Berlin's Efdemin, who brings to the EP his unique, minimal-house sense of the hypnotic groove