Turn of Phrase

The Book Of Knots has had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the worlds most talented musicians, including Tom Waits, Mike Patton, David Thomas, Blixa Bargeld, Jon Langford, and Carla Bozulich. Founding members Matthias Bossi (Skeleton Key, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), Joel Hamilton (producer/engineer for BlakRoc, Pretty Lights), Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat Trio, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) and Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Frank Black, Bob Mould) forge a sound both epic and intimate, empowering and devastating. Cinematic, symphonic landscapes give way to crumbling acoustic chamber ballads. Broken guitars and beautifully warped orchestras describe the ungraceful demise of boats, blast furnaces and bloated industries. Accounts of the failed adventures of tragic would-be heroes are given voice in the band's two previous critically-acclaimed releases. Their newest album serves as the final chapter in the bands "By Sea, By Land, By Air" trilogy.

This album is something of a legend in the annals of ECM lore, as it was the only ever recorded by the fantastically talented Steve Eliovson. With Collin Walcott on percussion for support, the since unheard-from guitarist carves lasting impressions that can now be thankfully heard on CD. The experience begins in “Venice” (as in California), where the guitar speaks with tabla like two continents connected by tectonic plates beneath an ocean. Eliovson’s sonorities are pristine, especially in “Earth End” and in “Slow Jazz,” where the precision of finger placement and the occasional bent note add a soulful turn of phrase. The album’s portal is “Awakening,” a submarine communion of gongs that closes one door while opening another. The title track is buoyed by a glimmering triangle and arpeggios from an internal guitar, while the external speaks in tongues with the various percussive accents that flit in and out of its view.