Knurl (band)

Knurl is the noise music project of Canadian experimental composer Alan Bloor. Based in Quebec, the composer has been performing and recording as Knurl since 1994, the year of project's seminal harsh noise release "Initial Shock." As Knurl, Alan Bloor has released over one hundred albums internationally and has performed with Jim O'Rourke and Thurston Moore. He has also played in festivals and performances worldwide in countries such as Japan, Turkey, and the United States.

Alan Bloor, originally from Windsor, Ontario, was involved in several bands in the early 80s, including a hardcore punk band called Binge of Violence. After Binge of Violence's breakup, Bloor pursued a career as a solo musician, studying jazz bass, as well as classical and flamenco guitar. In the late 1980s he began performing noise backgrounds at poetry readings in Detroit, Michigan. While performing, Bloor experimented with his bass guitar by placing metal objects on the strings to alter the timbre of the instrument (a technique often called prepared guitar). Since that time, Bloor has delved heavily into experimentation with found objects as sound sources, including fan blades, typewriters, scrap metal and car springs. He has also supplied musical scores for performers Andrew Hammerson (ex DV 8) and Jake Brown, from the UK and Montreal respectively. Since the beginning of 1995, Bloor has been performing solo as Knurl in Canada, the U. S, and abroad. Bloor has explored a less harsh side of noise music in his acclaimed ambient music project called Pholde.

Bloor's objective with his project, Knurl, is to take music and strip it entirely of its rhythm, melody, vocals, even production quality which is most associated with music today. Bloor records and performs without the assistance of computers, synthesizers or samplers. Labels that have released Knurl material include Alien8 Recordings, RRRecords, Solipsism, Harshnoise, Troniks, Gameboy, and
Obscurica.