|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
12"
|
|
AP 014EP
|
The tail end of 2018 saw the release of Oberman Knocks' third album on aperture records, Trilate Shift (AP 012LP). 2019 sees the release of Remhex Coyles EP, a standalone set of tracks with a different collective energy. Knocks steps out from the experimental room and heads towards a different kind of space, one that's less claustrophobic and subterranean -- a place that's more structured and in places more melodic than his usual output, but one where he still brings his own distinctive sound. This five-track EP shows an electronic musician in total control of every last detail.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
2LP
|
|
AP 012LP
|
Trilate Shift sees Oberman Knocks returning to Aperture Records following on from his last release Dilankex (2014), which featured an outstanding 17-minute remix from Autechre. Working on other projects during this time seems to have charged his creativity and Knocks now propels himself back into the fold for Trilate Shift, his third album with cleaner, more polished production and a change of direction which should certainly see his appeal rise across a wider audience. In 2018, Knocks produced the soundtrack to The Red Tree, an award-winning documentary film from Still Films (New York/Dublin) and in 2016 he was commissioned by The Lowry in Salford to produce a sound installation, 30 Days of The Smiths, forming part of their Week 53 festival, a version of which was also performed live. Trilate Shift sees Knocks serve up fourteen lustrous tracks of proficiency and divergent ingenuity encompassing interjections of disembodied vocals, setting the scene for a distinctive musical trajectory.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
12"
|
|
AP 004EP
|
Remixes by Plaid (Warp), Quinoline Yellow (Skam), former Bitstream members as Uexkull and Adapta. The results are as varied as the tracks selected.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
AP 004CD
|
Beatcroff Slabs follows Oberman Knocks' first release on the Aperture label, the widely-acclaimed 2009 debut album 13th Smallest, and is comprised of 16 tracks that take his sounds down yet darker, more twisted corridors and into ever-expanding sonic spaces. Beatcroff Slabs' evolving sound has essentially been built around the same core elements as 13th Smallest -- those of manipulated, synthesized studio sounds, fused with field recordings of the everyday and Knocks' travels. The vocals, both snatched in public and his own, are contorted into instrumentation, and conversely synthetic sounds mutated into those with a vocal resonance -- human and beyond. The album is produced with the same rudimentary set-up and continues Knocks' unabated and unique trajectory in sound. With Beatcroff Slabs, Oberman Knocks (Nigel Truswell) has produced a visceral album which further explores his trademark themes -- densely claustrophobic cinematic pieces, as with the opening track "Ak-himp Rise," the use of arrhythmic beats such as in "Leckren Verso" and his love for bottom-heavy sonics, found on "Konshun Four." The tempo of the album veers from the thundering "Scanlon's Heaping Gore Pull" and tripped-up beats of "Degonnt Type Runners," through to the metallically-spatial and delicate "Tek-fir Blades," along with one of the album's mellower moments "Mighton Ogan Lode," where Knocks demonstrates that machine music can indeed be evocative and imbued with human emotion, as well as fully-charged with mechanical vigor.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
AP 001CD
|
"Andrea Parker is to release the first album on her new label aperture which will be combining all things experimental. Breaking from convention. It will be based around concepts, soundscapes and mystery. 'It is all art after all.' The release in question is the 10 track, out-there debut album from Sheffield born Oberman Knocks (aka Nigel Truswell), who now lives in the badlands of Walworth, South London; and also works in Whitechapel as one half of graphic design studio Pony. After first listening to Nigel's demo Parker says 'I was pleasantly surprised and instantly addicted. It was what I had been waiting for. Haunting sounds that rise and fall with seams of vulnerability. Heavy yet beautiful, underlined by deep rumblings (and I do like my bottom end!) A timeless piece. Setting the scene for the next David Lynch film. (Oh and did I mention it's dark!!??)' The album is produced with three pieces of software, a minidisc recorder and a cheap little microphone. With no interest in the latest plug-ins, tech-talk and very limited technical know-how, the tracks are all about the creation and manipulation of sounds for the pure pleasure of the production itself. Spurning sterile accuracy and clinically happy tunes for sounds that bring back some of the dirt and darkness that has been swept away of late, these are tracks happy to inhabit the dark corridors of the mind through to large expanses of concrete space waiting to be filled. Influenced by funk, motown and hip hop as much as by the likes of WARP and Skam. The Human League's 'Being Boiled' was the first record Nigel ever brought (and what a classic) but it was through Autechre's Sean Booth and fellow WARP recording artist Mira Calix that Nigel was first encouraged to start making his own music. Initially recording under the moniker Alkin Engineering and later WG Machines, he has released tracks on Static Caravan, Unlabel, Nastycandy, Shima and October Man Recordings. 13th Smallest is Nigel's debut outing as Oberman Knocks."
|