Knife In The Water
"Cut The Cord"
by Johanna J. Bodde
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KNIFE IN THE WATER
"Cut The Cord" (Glitterhouse Records) www.knifeinthewater.com www.glitterhouse.com The front cover of this CD already makes it clear: this is serious music! The cream-colored adaptation of a photograph featuring the earnest looking bandmembers on a night-blue background, sets the right mood immediately. For me this is the introduction to the Texan band Knife In The Water, but it turns out to be their third album already. I always like it, when I hear a male as well as a female vocal. In this case the voices of Aaron Blount, also the songwriter and a little less prominent Laura Krause, who also plays the keyboards. A lapsteel is inventively used and the sounds of the rhythm tandem play sometimes an important part too, just listen to "Biltmora Children". During the whole CD, fifty minutes long, the music stays slow and melancholic, continuously full of restraint tension balancing on the edge of the abyss where death, darkness and despair are lurking, but... balancing with the graceful, transparent gestures of ballet dancers. This would fit very well as a soundtrack to an arthouse movie, by the way. It doesn't sound like anything else I know, except for Lambchop's music, maybe. I notice influences from the alternative folk, some clear country sounds and for the rest Psychedelica, indeed with a capital P. Knive In The Water themselves calls it "Western Drug Music", what a find, just listen to "Golden Calf Highway". And then the lyrics, neatly printed in cream with blue titles on the black pages, to be read and listened to as philosophical poems, that can be explained in many ways. The word I was looking for: "existentialistic". This is an album that stays close to my CD-player for the time being, I just like my music intriguing and elusive! --- Written by Johanna J. Bodde, Dutch original of this review previously published on Real Roots Cafe, The Netherlands. ===== |
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