Lost in Time: Bent Knee – Shiny Eyed Babies

Style: Art Rock, Indie Rock, Avant-Garde (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: The Dear Hunter, The Mars Volta, Thank You Scientist, Radiohead, Joanna Newsom
Country: Massachusetts, USA
Release date: 11 November 2014

Berklee College of Music; Boston, Massachusetts; 2009. Singer and pianist Courtney Swain meets guitarist Ben Levin and the two decide to collaborate, mashing their names together—Ben-tney—to form Bent Knee. Quickly swelling to a sextet, this coterie of music nerds, quietly collaborating on their idiosyncratic compositions amid the jazz prodigies and virtuoso players surely couldn’t have anticipated how strangely large their impact would one day be on the progressive music scene. 

Describing Bent Knee is a challenge; they’re not a prog band per se, though they’ve been welcomed with open arms by the prog community, touring with Leprous, Haken, Thank You Scientist, and even The Dillinger Escape Plan. Vocalist and keyboardist Courtney Swain’s unique timbre has shades of Joanna Newsom but with about a million kilojoules more force, and one can’t help but link the strange time signatures, pianocentric compositions, replete with strings and ambience, to In Rainbows-era Radiohead, too. And yet Bent Knee send the heaviness and strangeness off the charts, touching upon a sound akin to artists such as King Crimson, Björk, and Queens of the Stone Age, yet stemming from a melange of influences from pop, avant-garde, classical, improv, musical theatre, prog, and much more.

After their DIY debut self-titled work three years earlier, Shiny Eyed Babies was a defiant announcement of Bent Knee’s arrival. After the deceptively whimsical piano ditty that comprises the introductory title track comes the ominous stomp of ecologically-minded excoriation “Way Too Long”, apocalyptically climaxing with nightmarish organ, Courtney becoming a sonic maelstrom, Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth absolutely mullering the drumkit while Ben and Jess Kion’s angular riffs cut beneath. I don’t know that Bent Knee have ever written anything as heavy since (“Lovemenot” from You Know What They Mean comes closest). 

“Way Too Long” certainly sets the tone. Shiny Eyed Babies is boldly off-kilter, and even the more straightforward tracks swerve into moments of metallic heaviness and experimental weirdness. “Dry” resolves itself into a noisy crescendo of grating piano, sax and synthetic distortions (as does “Skin”), Courtney literally screaming the chorus over the top. Chris Baum teases with his slowly intensifying, folk-tinged violin work on “Sunshine” which ultimately explodes into a screeching refrain of the old-time folk standard “You Are My Sunshine”, ending mid-refrain to physically wrench the light away from the listener. “Being Human” plays with consonance and dissonance, almost tearing beyond breaking point as Courtney repeatedly intones “I imagine your dead body” with increasing fanaticism before the song manages to get over its dissociative episode. The genius of Bent Knee is that they’re well-versed in the minutiae of songwriting to chip away at those familiar conventions in real time. Just as the original run of Twin Peaks was almost a soap opera except for the frequent moments of hysterical cosmic horror inflected weirdness, so Bent Knee are almost an accessible rock band except everything they do pushes at boundaries—the tinkering of Berklee alums at their most mischievous. 

That’s not to say there isn’t lightness to be found here, as in the more orchestral atmospheres of “I’m Still Here” accented by Jessica’s mellifluous backing vocals, the picaresque, electronica-tinged verses of “Dead Horse” (contrasted, of course, by deeply emotive lyrics) or the bouncier tone of “Skin” (which resolves into an ominous horn groove). Bent Knee are dynamics royalty—”Sunshine” alone is proof positive of that, the gradual increase in intensity and volume contributing to the emotional force of the climax—and they sojourn from moments of sublimity and vulnerability (such as the “Center of attention…” refrain on “In God We Trust”) to outrageous raucousness ala “Way Too Long”. Vince Welch, who handles production and mixing, as well as synthesisers, is a large part of that, mixing the many elements of the band in a way that lovingly cares for every texture—god knows I’ve listened to many an album where bass or violin were pushed back so far in the mix as to be irrelevant, but here they’re indelible components within a capacious musical tapestry. 

Shiny Eyed Babies celebrates its tenth anniversary a little later this year, and Bent Knee have come a long way since. Courtney has remained a relentlessly prolific artist, juggling collaborations (notably with Car Bomb and Haken) and a solo career, and—somewhat improbably—rearranged a Philip Glass piece for the TV show Bob’s Burgers. Gavin works on many of the other members’ side projects as well as teaching drums and guitar on the side, while Vince similarly teaches mixing and production whilst undertaking such duties for his bandmates and others solo projects. Ben is a workhorse, too, with a dizzying amount of solo work to his name, and contributing to a number of other projects including Einar Solberg’s and Richard Henshall’s solo albums (the latter of which Jess and Chris also appeared on). Jess dabbles in the visual arts alongside her solo music project Justice Cow, and Chris has contributed strings and orchestration to a number of excellent albums, including Leprous’ latest efforts and the new Ihsahn album. Bent Knee’s trojan influence is insidiously brilliant, their zany academic brilliance making itself known in the most unexpected of places. They aren’t and never have been a capital-P prog band, but this well-synchronised agglomeration of trained musicians have struck upon gold again and again, and that speaks to a progressive sensibility that catches the ear of listeners and fellow musicians alike who can feel the intuition and expertise in every note. 

I discovered Bent Knee when 2017’s Land Animal dropped and that remained my favourite of their works for some time, but Shiny Eyed Babies snuck up on me, its rawness, sincerity, and uncompromising eccentricity always pulling me back in. But Bent Knee have dared to evolve with every release, exploring a more noise rock style on You Know What They Mean, dabbling in hyperpop on Frosting, and going indie on Say So. Not every evolution will satisfy every fan, but their consistent experimentation shows that their talent is matched only by their ambition. That’s the key to their success, an inimitable voice in the progressive field, and though Jess and Ben have since left, I have total faith that Courtney, Chris, Gavin and Vince will have much more to show us later this year when their seventh album, Twenty Pills Without Water, releases. You can’t keep ‘em down.

Recommended tracks: Way Too Long, Sunshine, Battle Creek, Skin, Being Human
You may also like: Meer, Ophelia Sullivan, i Häxa, Marjana Semkina

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Shiny Eyed Babies was independently released.

Bent Knee is:
– Courtney Swain (vocals, keyboards)
– Ben Levin (guitars)
– Jessica Kion (bass, vocals)
– Chris Baum (violin)
– Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth (drums)
– Vince Welch (production, sound design)