Bilingual Knife

Bilingual Knife doesn’t know any better. It’s as if they’ve been living on the moon for the entire 13 years they have been making music together under different names, and within multiple projects. It’s anybody’s guess as to what has actually compelled them to emerge from nearly a decade of deliberate obscurity. Seemingly appearing out of thin air with a full length album, compositions for local movie scores and soundtracks, and a demanding live show schedule – one might ask: Why now?
Whether it’s a matter of knowing when to play their cards or an exercise in rapid spontaneous creativity – none of the five members of this Michigan based ensemble will tell. This comes as no surprise considering the peculiar personalities behind these eccentric musicians. If Michael Cornelius seems a bit bi-polar for handling both bass and rhythm guitar duties, then vocalist Eric Schlager definitely has an extreme multiple personality problem displayed by his seemingly endless collection of voices. Splitting his time between electronic and acoustic kits, drummer Mowgli occasionally sounds like a drum machine that got in a fight with a percussionist. Bringing a touch of stability to this chaos is guitarist Tony Mills with a tasteful mix of crunching riffs and dramatic leads. Collectively, all of these elements sit comfortably supported by the vast sonic landscape created by keyboardist Bill Schultz combining enormous string sections, hypnotic synthesizers, and haunting samples.
To describe their sound as eclectic would be a massive understatement. It’s more like the deranged love child of two polar-opposite iPods. Call them a metal band with a penchant for easy listening, or, a rock band with an exhausting short-attention span. Either way, their self-titled debut album plays like a well-stocked buffet: there’s something for everyone. Some may stuff themselves, while others will just snack – but no one will leave hungry.
Perhaps if this band had a clue, they would have picked one ‘current’ genre and stuck with it. Maybe they could have paid at least the slightest attention to the latest trends to give them an edge in today’s music scene. But, of course, they just don’t know any better. Lost in their own disconnected world of random conception, they will most likely just continue their aimless pursuit of sonic self-gratification typically resulting in art of the purest form – raw and unfiltered.