TCB

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New Knife

As slowly as one of their shadowy narco-roots songs unfolds, Knife in the Water has rematerialized in local venues after nearly a yearlong hiatus. Vocalist/guitarist Aaron Blount says the trouble started when Knife and their label, Aspyr (which has since shut down its music division), couldn't see eye to eye: "We had a clause in our contract that said after a year, if we weren't happy with the situation we could fire them, and we did." Almost concurrently, the quintet was in turn let go by their booking agent, and guitarist Kiki Solis shattered both heels jumping off a two-story Amsterdam building, requiring several months of rehabilitation. "We were just kind of worn down," deadpans Blount. They returned to live playing first in Dallas – "for some reason we have some weird connection with Dallas we don't with our hometown," says Blount – then in Austin, exploring more acoustic-, jazz-, and country-based palettes. (Try the wispy cover of Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" on their MySpace page.) "We're trying a bunch of different directions right now," says Blount. "We want to be able to work on anything." See what that might be at Beerland's 7pm happy hour Friday and Feb. 24's Sweatbox benefit at Emo's.