"Expect the Unexpected" - this motto by Peter Gabriel could also apply to the American art rock sextet Bent Knee. While the graduates of Berklee College Of Music have delivered their most accessible song collection with their predecessor "Land Animal", the fifth album "You Know What They Mean" is their most radical statement, which occasionally disturbs with harsh sounds, on the other hand reconciles with emotional art rock songs.
In the conversation with singer/keyboarder Courtney Swain there is a question at the beginning that seems to have little to do with the current longplayer: Why didn't Bent Knee first record their classical composition "Paper Earth", which has been on YouTube for months as a 30-minute recording? Swain explains: "Well, we've played the piece at a number of concerts and we're going to release the online recording possibly as a bonus track or as an EP. But somehow we missed the opportunity to bring it out in a timely manner. We'd also like to publish a score of what we're working on right now."
So even though the piece is on the heap, the new album was still influenced by it: "Paper Earth had up to 20 percussionists and more instrumentalists," says the artist, "but when we talked about the new album, we thought it would help if we imposed some creative restrictions on ourselves. We agreed, for example, that for the first time we would not accept external musicians."
