S.Maharba - Scabitha

S.Maharba - Around With You

S.Maharba - Cold Friend

S.Maharba - Unborn

S.Maharba - Won't Wake Up

S.Maharba - Shut Out

S.Maharba - Ratbones

S.Maharba - Gluey

S.Maharba - Wurm

S.Maharba - Jessamine

S.Maharba - Chain Link Face Lift

S.Maharba - Maggot

One In A Million (Klaar Remix)

Klaar - Proletari Liminus Mix

J.G. Biberkopf - "Air. Coltan. Carbon. Lithium."

J.G. Biberkopf
Ecologies
Cat #: KNV001
Format: 12″ / Digital

J. G. Biberkopf’s work spans club, theatre and digital radio contexts. The tracks here float between cyberambience and slamming rhythmic constructions; distant trails of web-filtered grime, and beatless studies of net phenomenology. His collage compositions are intended as a field trip into the represenations of nature that emerge from the digital-social media scape. He says of the project’s inception, that he was intrigued by an oddly “naive idea of nature that seemed strikingly prevalent in my social environment.. I was curious to know how these simulations of Nature work in digital media, how do we do experience these simulated materials”. J.G. Biberkopf appears as part of an newly emergent wave of intensely thoughtful, rhythmically physical, net-aware young artists, such as v1984 and Sentinl. Exploring similar themes to Biberkopf within his practice is Australian visual artist Joe Hamilton, who also employs technology and found material in order to create complex and intricate environments - both offer an experience which is oddly romantic; stripped of it’s tangibility, yet provided with a synthetic vitality. Hamilton’s multimedia project, ‘Hyper Geography’ (2011), is cited by Biberkopf as a key influence in the development of ‘Ecologies’. These work analogously in investigating evolving relationships with our immediate, often juxtaposed, environments and the concept of nature within an age of an increasing, network based interdependence. Here, Hamilton provides visual reference to ‘Ecologies’ with a new work for the record sleeve, in addition to a limited print edition, to be available exclusively through Knives.



J.G. Biberkopf - "Spirit"

J.G. Biberkopf - "Age Of Aquarius"

Kuedo
Assertion Of A Surrounding Presence
Cat #: KNV002
Format: 12″ / Digital

amie Teasdale, best known as Kuedo, makes a timely return with the sci­fi designed ‘Assertion of a Surrounding Presence’ ­ his first solo release proper since 2012, and the 2nd issue on his fledgling Knives label after J.G. Biberkopf’s ‘Ecologies’. His celebrated production style remains anterior to modern dance music and electronica, largely by virtue of unbending futurist focus and careful attention to detail. Here flanked by collaborations with erstwhile Vex’d partner, Roly Porter, plus Berlin’s Phoebe Kiddo a.k.a. Mind:Body:Fitness, and Canada’s Egyptrixx, the next chapter in Kuedo’s odyssey expands his sci­fi dimensions with ever sharper contouring gradients, and hyperreal spatialisation structured around recalibrated footwork, drill and techno engines. Scaling from the vertigo­inducing opener to a finale of panicked gamelan drama, ‘Assertion of a Surrounding Presence’ renders Kuedo’s most affective, elaborate reflection of a nowness, divining a metaphysical, cybernetic zeitgeist in the vaulted reverb structures of his Ghost In The Shell nod, ‘Eyeless Angel Intervention’, or the trance fluid T­2000 techstep momentum of ‘Boundary Regulation’, whilst pursuing more tangled emotions and ethereal sensations in the recursive, hyaline gamelan cadence of ‘Border State Collapse’ and ‘Event Tracking Across Populated Terrain’.

Providing the visual framework for 'Assertion Of A Surrounding Presence' is Joshua Petherick. Petherick works across a variety of media, including video, textiles, sculpture and sound, creating esoteric puzzles which often re-contextualise objects and materials using a mixture of both digital and anolog processes. Addressing the complexity of function, his work, like Kuedo's, plays with a sense of the uncanny - fracturing object or image, whose role is questioned and ultimately framed as a residual artifact in an ongoing sequence of possible outcomes. Joshua Petherick is represented by Croy Nielsen (Berlin), Minerva, (Sydney), and Robert Heald (Wellington).



Kuedo - "Border State Collapse"

Kuedo -  'Boundary Regulation'

Kuedo - 'Eyeless Angel Intervention'

From 'v1984 - Pansori' out 5th May 2017 on Knives
Preorder Knives store: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/81573-v1984-pansori
Preorder bandcamp: https://v1984.bandcamp.com/

Moving forward from last year's well received debut EP 'Becoming (N)one' on Glacial Industries, v1984 releases his debut for Knives, the label founded by Jamie Teasdale (Kuedo) and Joe Shakespeare. Jamie says "v1984 was the first artist we approached as a label, in 2014. He's been a core part of Knives as an idea, since before our first record."

v1984, real name Christopher Ramos, is of Korean/Filipino descent and the title ‘Pansori’ reflects his Korean heritage. It has the dual translation of a 'gathering place for sound' and it specifically refers to traditional storytelling, which in turn is a neat description of the EP.

The music here is delicate and meticulously laid out. Even when it approaches noise it's detailed and elegant rather than bludgeoning, like the piano and arpeggio that give way to a cold crystalline spray and shimmering drone in the opener 'SPfiNAL TAP re-JUVENescence'. The switches in mood from track to track suggest a loose narrative, even with a brief interlude in the shape of 'False Awakenings' that feels as if it's inspired by long forgotten anime soundtracks, constructed from beatless clustered pitch-shifting vocals, bells and airy whooshes.

Musically the EP references both the classical music Christopher studied as a child and contemporary electronic music, but it's shattered and smeared into unusual shapes that are, in the more abstract tracks, his musical interpretation of lucid dreaming. Even the club ready tracks have an element of the sublime, such as 'Too Much' which sounds like a synthetic take on the emotional soundtracks of Joe Hisaishi with crafted contemporary hip hop beats woven in, or the damp neon melancholy of 'Aria of Dawn' which colours a mood with a simple gentle glassy melody over tip-tapping drums.

￼
The final track 'beauty_IT5INYR-H3D' draws the whole EP together, into a track that contrasts the frenzied and the elegant with crashing, whirling imp-like voices and glassy noise dragged over a tender solo piano melody underpinned by depth charge bass chords.

As with every Knives release, visual communication is an integral part of this project. Berlin-based Maren Karlson's illustrative practice is absurd, technically sharp and walks a fine line between beauty and the corruption of aesthetics.  Maren has provided the artwork for 'Pansori', and these traits align perfectly with Christopher's compositions. Christopher says of the EP's imagery: "There was something immediately beautiful, yet maybe a bit unsettling as well, that felt quite tangible to me and resonated within my work.  For me, the image depicts some of these moments, between the real and unreal, like lucid dreaming."

Pansori

v1984 - Aria of Dawn

Free download from http://www.k-n-i-v-e-s.com

'v1984 - Pansori' out 5th May 2017 on Knives
Preorder Knives store: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/81573-v1984-pansori
Preorder bandcamp: https://v1984.bandcamp.com/

v1984 - Too Much (vocal)

Knives are proud to present the debut release from Belgian artist Obsequies, entitled Organn. 

At its core, Organn is a record about love and duality. Taking inspiration from Isidore-Lucien Ducasse's poem 'Les Chants de Maldoror', the record is antagonistic yet often drops its temper to reveal blistered beauty within the fray. Such are the condradictory elements within the compositions themselves: widescreen claustrophobia; glimmering sludge; piercing VHS ambience.

Visuals come courtesy of French mixed-media artist, Thomas Hauser. Hauser's imagery similarly evokes retrograde surrealism and further insists on a narrative at work here, with obscured characters playing out alongside mantric piano, filmic vox and hyperspeed jungle.

Organn

Obsequies - Asthme

From 'Kuedo - The Sprawl OST' out 3rd July 2020 on Knives. 
Pre order now from www.k-n-i-v-e-s.bandcamp.com/

Kuedo (Jamie Teasdale) makes his return to Knives with 'The Sprawl OST' – a selection of original recordings made for Metahaven’s documentary film 'The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda)', which premiered as an installation at YBCA San Francisco in 2015 and saw its cinema premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in early 2016.

Mirroring his earlier Kuedo release for Knives, 'Assertion Of A Surrounding Presence' – whose tracks also feature heavily throughout the film – 'The Sprawl OST' continues to reflect upon themes such as surveillance and the platforms of digital propaganda: elements of the film that also have played a role in Metahaven's own expansive art practice. Stylistically, The Sprawl OST demonstrates the range of Teasdale's application and ability– ranging from material that evokes a cinematic take on his 8-bar square-wave roughness as half of duo, Vex'd ('Story of The Wolf'), and glides through the continuum's residue up to the point of blissed out, widescreen ascension ('Floating Megastructure'), recalling Kenji Kawai's soundtrack masterworks.

Metahaven's 'The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda)' emerged before the Trump presidency, and took as its starting point the mass invasion of social media by state propaganda outlets in the wake of the Arab Spring, suggesting more structural interconnections between geopolitics and software.

100% of sales until 31st August 2020 will be split between the NAACP Legal Defense Fund & Black Lives Matter UK, who are currently raising money for their work with Black communities, which includes developing strategies in the face of police brutality, and supporting the families of Black people killed at the hands of the British police.

The Sprawl OST

Kuedo - Story Of The Wolf

Kuedo - Disinfomation Cascade

Know V.A.: Hibernation (Knives)
Release date: 6th November, 2020

Knives follow this Summer’s Kuedo OST release with an upfront club tool EP from DJ / producer duo, Know V.A. 

'Hibernation' traces ecstatic elements from the hard dance music familiar to their formative experience growing up in Holland, and fuses them with more UK leaning frameworks of late 90s techstep and late 00s vaporous grime, forming an ode to the romantic nostalgia of a shared club experience. Across the 5 tracks on 'Hibernation', Know V.A. set baroque string and choral arrangements into orbit around a hypnotic meandering of fierce gabber stabs and chattering percussion - at once reminiscent of both devine, classical ceremony and flailing club experience, drenched in sweat.

Know V.A. have performed internationally for a range of promoters and venues, such as Boiler Room and Stedelijk Museum. They curate the event and club night ‘Strange Days’, which seeks to showcase contemporary hardcore experimentalism and explore how the genre, sonically and visually has remained active in the underground. Their soundtrack work includes music for Calvin Klein and the acclaimed hardcore documentary 'Thunderdome Never Dies'. 

A collaborative artwork for the project is provided in the form of an emblem designed by artist Nicholas Law, subsequently animated by Winston Duke.

The EP will be closely followed by an additional release of remixed tracks, provided by UCC Harlo, Exploited Body & Sully. 

As of 2020 Knives is an independent project, now separate from any parent label.

Hibernation 

Know V.A. - Dirt

Know V.A. - Artefact

Know V.A.: Hibernation (Knives)
Release date: 6th November, 2020

Knives follow this Summer’s Kuedo OST release with a club tool EP from DJ / producer duo, Know V.A. 

'Hibernation' traces ecstatic elements from the hard dance music familiar to their formative experience growing up in Holland, and fuses them with more UK leaning frameworks of late 90s techstep and late 00s vaporous grime, forming an ode to the romantic nostalgia of a shared club experience. Across the 5 tracks on 'Hibernation', Know V.A. set baroque string and choral arrangements into orbit around a hypnotic meandering of fierce gabber stabs and chattering percussion - at once reminiscent of both devine, classical ceremony and flailing club experience, drenched in sweat.

Know V.A. have performed internationally for a range of promoters and venues, such as Boiler Room and Stedelijk Museum. They curate the event and club night ‘Strange Days’, which seeks to showcase contemporary hardcore experimentalism and explore how the genre, sonically and visually has remained active in the underground. Their soundtrack work includes music for Calvin Klein and the acclaimed hardcore documentary 'Thunderdome Never Dies'. 

A collaborative artwork for the project is provided in the form of an emblem designed by artist Nicholas Law, subsequently animated by Winston Duke.

As of 2020 Knives is an independent project, now separate from any parent label.

Know V.A. - Hibernation

Know V.A.: Hibernation Remixes (Knives)
Release date: 22nd January, 2021

@sullye64

Artwork by Nicholas Law & Winston Duke

Know V.A. - Artefact (Sully Remix)

Know V.A.: Hibernation Remixes (Knives)
Release date: 22nd January, 2021

@exploitedbody

Artwork by Nicholas Law & Winston Duke

K/N/I/V/E/S

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