After displacing it for just a moment at a separate gig earlier that afternoon, Bent Knee’s Courtney Swain had found her mojo.
Now, as she struck the keyboard onstage at Cafe Nine, hitting the words “I try to speak / but I only leak water” with something just short of a wail, the audience stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder, and made one unspoken decision en masse: to depart New Haven for a full-fledged art-rock soundscape, where space and time were propelled solely by the band, and seemed like they could keep going forever.
Or, at least, until Swain and her cadre of bandmates stopped momentarily between songs, and raucous applause jolted a crowd of over 100 back to reality.
This was no starless exploration of aural outer space, but Saturday night at Cafe Nine, where the Boston-based group was headlining after local bands Kindred Queer and Olive Tiger, and before Ports of Spain.
A collective born out of Boston’s Berklee College of Music seven years ago, Bent Knee is one of those groups that keeps pulling throaty, loopy, reverb-soaked tricks out of its musical bag, and then — when you are absolutely sure they’re all out — keeps going. With Swain holding down lead vocals and keyboard, the group operated with a delicate and very deliberate mix of give-and-take that kept the audience on their toes, and totally delighted. At one moment, you were in a mosh pit; the next, a very good pop concert; the next, a paint-splattered installation party.
Performing “Leak Water” off of their new album, to be released shortly, members awed the audience, a slow plink plink plink meshing right into Swain’s voice, and blossoming into a deep, sound-soaked round with bassist Jessica Kion and violinist Chris Baum contributing vocals and Vince Welch, Ben Levin, and Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth delivering whooshing, rising and falling computer, guitar, and drums.
Olive Tiger and Ports of Spain let a little of Bent Knee seep into their work, and into one of the city’s longest-running music venues.
While the former (Olive: cello, guitar, vocals, loopers; Jesse Newman: violin, electronics; Dane Scozzari: drums) — a dizzying, neat and totally charming mix of cello and voice loops, drums and ironed-out strings —used it make a case for why the group is now mature enough to be dropping an album (Til My Body Breaks is expected in the spring) and going on tour, the latter did by going all in, seeing Bent Knee as something to aspire to, and perhaps match musical wits with. Drummer and vocalist Sam Carlson nailed “Winter’s Teeth” with bandmate Ilya Gitelman, with a version that went from jammy and jubilant to straight up rhapsodic, adding an extra two minutes to the song.
“I was literally scared of performing after them,” said member Sam Carlson after the show, thanking a cluster of 20 people for staying through 1 a.m. to see the group.
He had no reason to be. His drumbeat penetrated to the very core of attendees, restarting a dance party that Bent Knee instigated. It could have gone well through dawn.
Why can't anyone just play rock n' roll in this town? And I'm not trying to be a jerk here. That's always been the problem with "local music" in New Haven. Everyone tries so hard to be different. And it's always some sub genre that nobody else is playing. Ska. Rockabilly. Dub Step.
Maybe I'm showing my age here, but can we please just go back to rock n' roll?