Introductions all around

Image: Irene Cecile

Knock Knock - The Accidental

Ali Smith wrote a novel called The Accidental about a stranger who insinuates herself into the lives of a fraught family. It came out a couple years ago and you might have heard of it; you might even have read it. I tried, but only got halfway through. The Accidental, the band, may have also (read the book, not succumbed to short attention-spanitis) and this sorta-supergroup may have taken their name from it. And if you've ever played the piano (me! But abandoned before I got very good. See a pattern?), you know that accidentals are the black keys on the board (an accidental is also a musical notation related to pitch). So maybe (ok, probably), that's what the band's referring to. Either way, it's a great name--solid, confident, totemic-sounding, but at the same time a little uneasy, a tad vulnerable.

"Knock Knock" is the first track on The Accidental's delightful first album, and it's the perfect meet n' greet, an introduction to their offhand harmonies, homemade percussion, barefoot la-di-da. It's also an introduction to one another. They start kind of tentative, like strangers meeting on a country road, slowly entering into polite conversation, then engaging more intensely, dropping the small talk for talk about what's real.

From There Were Wolves (Amazon, to be released in June in the US), Myspace