Knurl (band)
Knurl is the noise music project of Canadian experimental composer Alan Bloor. Based in Quebec, Bloor has been performing and recording Knurl material since 1994, when his seminal harsh noise release "Initial Shock" was released. He has released over one hundred albums internationally, and has performed with Jim O'Rourke and Thurston Moore. Knurl has played in festivals and performances worldwide in countries such as Japan, Turkey, and the U.S. Biography. Bloor, originally from Windsor, Ontario, was involved in several bands in the early 80s, including a hardcore punk band called "Binge of Violence." After the band's breakup , he 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, in which he experimented with his bass guitar by placing metal objects on the strings to produce the sounds (a technique often called prepared guitar). Since that time, Bloor has delved heavily into experimentation with found objects as sound sources, which have included fan blades, typewriters, scrap metal and car springs. He has also supplied musical scores for performers Andrew Hammerson (ex DV-8) from the UK and  Jake Brown, Montreal. Since the beginning of 1995 he has been performing solo as Knurl in Canada, the U.S, and abroad, and has explored a less harsh side of noise music in his acclaimed ambient music project called Pholde. Music. Knurl's objective 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. Cryocarbazine- June, 2021- Partial discography. Rural  Isolation Project.