DAVE KNOWLES MUSIC

Dave Knowles is an unfailingly powerful and intimate performer with an innovative style and eloquence of substance. With a prolific appetite for creation, Knowles' music blurs elements of Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, Radiohead and PJ Harvey in an expression truly his own.

Over the decade since departing from his Manchester band, Shinobi, Knowles' style has been catalyzed by his exposure to percussive guitar and beatboxing, experiments in looping and sharing stages with the breadth of South Africa's top guitarists. Upon completing his studies in Grahamstown, Knowles began establishing himself as a full-time artist in Cape Town, performing the range of the city's venues and booking regular tours up the coast.
Beyond his work as performing artist Knowles has expanded into other media, working as a freelance composer for Pressure Cooker Studios and gaining experience in film and advertising, which he since developed in further private commissions and digital compositions.

In his his upcoming studio debut, recorded at Africa Sun Music, Knowles puts this to good use in his wide arrangements of previously solo pieces both digitally and with session musicians.

In 2016, these various avenues found their fusion when director, Jayne Batzofin, commissioned Knowles to compose and perform the music on the cast of "No Fun ction AlL anguage", a production to be developed for The Chaeli Campaign. To meet the challenge Knowles acquired a high-end looper and, over the course of the production, picked up the flute and bass guitar. With the first run's curtain call behind them, Knowles has emerged as a multi-instrumentalist live looping vocalist with an ear for arrangement and improvisation.

After years of organic growth and exploration, 2016 is proving to be a watershed for Knowles' career and with new productions, collaborations, videos and recordings on the way, there is much to watch from this emerging artist.