Dave Okumu – Knopperz (LP)

Album Info Hide Show Artist: Dave Okumu Album: Knopperz Released: Europe, 2021 Tracklist: A1 Intro 1:37 A2 Son of Emmerson 3:44 A3 Ballpark 3:34 A4 Trouble 4:42 B1 New Dawn 3:34 B2 Brother 3:31 B3 Reprise 1:20 B4 RTN 5:30 B5 Don’t Die 1:13 Info About Buying Vinyl From Our Record Store We are a small independent record store located at 211 High St, Preston in Melbourne, Australia (North of Northcote, between Thornbury & Reservoir) We buy and sell new and used vinyl records – if you have a collection you’d like to sell please click here . We ship Australia wide for a flat rate of $10 for standard shipping or $15 for express post. Free Shipping for orders $150 and over. You can also pick up your order in store, just select Local Pickup at the checkout. We also ship internationally – prices vary depending on weight and location. We ship vinyls in thick, rigid carboard mailers with a crushable zone on either side, and for extra safety we bubble wrap the records. 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You can contact our Melbourne record shop at (03) 9939 3807 or at [email protected] Happy Listening! Description Hide Show Dave Okumu has always been a shapeshifter. As the guitarist and bandleader of The Invisible, he helped steer a Mercury Prize nominated debut in 2009, then became a secret weapon for a stack of artists, from co-producing Jessie Wares Devotion to slipping into sessions as a tasteful, inventive collaborator. Knopperz, released in 2021, finds him stepping into the spotlight with something quieter and more idiosyncratic. Its a producers record in the best sense, all feel and fine detail, made for late nights and deep listens. The first thing that lands is the glide. Knopperz moves like a single thought, a run of short pieces that bleed into one another, each one shaped around a pocket rather than a chorus. The palette is warm and smoked out. Chopped pianos, woozy synths, quietly insistent basslines and drum programming that swings without drawing attention to itself. Okumus guitar is there, but never as a showpiece. It flickers at the edges, adds grit or soft light, and then steps back. You hear years of listening and playing folded into something that feels handrolled and human. A lot of the magic sits in the way he treats source material. Knopperz is built largely from fragments of Duval Timothys 2020 album Help, recontextualised into new shapes. You can pick out the DNA if you know Timothys work, those tender piano voicings and hushed textures, but Okumu doesnt treat them as precious artefacts. He turns them into new rooms. One track will feel like a hazy backroom jam, the next like a walk through drizzle on a Sunday afternoon, the chords landing with the soft thud of memory. Its collage, but with a songwriters ear for contour and release. Theres a quiet lineage running through it too. If you have a soft spot for J Dillas swing or MF DOOMs cratedug mood pieces, this will feel familiar without ever sounding derivative. Okumu is too seasoned to chase nostalgia. He keeps the tempos modest, leaves air between the parts and lets the groove do the talking. The best passages feel like theyre breathing. A hihat opens a whisker, a bass note lingers a fraction longer than expected, a piano loop frays at the edges and suddenly your shoulders drop. Its understated, but not slight. What keeps me coming back is the emotional throughline. Knopperz never goes in for big statements, yet its quietly full of them. Theres melancholy, yes, but also curiosity and a kind of neighbourly warmth. You can imagine it spilling out of a kitchen radio in Peckham, or soundtracking a tram ride across Melbourne as rain traces the window. Its music for thinking, or not thinking, depending on the hour. And it rewards volume. Turn it up and you catch the microtextures, the little clicks and room noise, the specific way the low end hugs the track rather than bulldozing it. If youve followed Okumus work as a sideman, its fun to spot the fingerprints. That patience with form. The refusal to crowd the canvas. The sense that what you leave out is as important as what you put in. Its easy to hear why singers trust him. Hes all about a frame that flatters the subject. Here the subject is feel itself. The result is a record that works as a full play, start to finish, but also as a thing you can drop the needle on anywhere and land on a mood. For those hunting a physical copy, Knopperz vinyl is worth the chase. The lowend warmth and grainy midrange sit nicely on wax, and its the kind of album that makes a room feel a couple of degrees softer. If youre browsing a Melbourne record store or sifting through vinyl records Australia wide, file it near your beat tapes and leftfield jazzadjacent gems. And if your local is out, its easy enough to buy Dave Okumu records online. Serious collectors might go deeper and scoop other Dave Okumu albums on vinyl too, just to trace the arc from bandleader to producer to solo auteur. In a crowded field of producerled projects, Knopperz stands out by doing less and meaning more. It feels livedin and kind, like a wellworn jumper that still smells faintly of last nights gig. If Dave Okumu vinyl is new to you, start here. Its a quiet flex from a musician who understands that taste is its own instrument, and that sometimes the softest touch leaves the deepest mark. Product Reviews Hide Show Write a Review