Category Archives: Dirty Knobs

Dirty Knobs and The Electric Witch at Homegrown 2015

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The 2015 Homegrown Music Festival schedule is out! Both Dirty Knobs and The Electric Witch will be playing on seperate nights, and TEW singer Mary Bue will also be playing her own music. Check the info below and we hope to see you out there:

Monday, April 27
Red Herring Lounge
5pm Opening reception for Homegrown Photo Show
5:30pm Tim Kaiser
>>6:30pm Dirty Knobs<<
8:15pm Superfly McFlash
9:15pm Lorenzo’s Tractor
10:15pm I Am the Slow Dancing Umbrella

Friday, May 1
Pizza Lucé
10:30pm Retribution Gospel Choir
>>11:30pm Mary Bue<<
12:30am WOLF BLOOD

Saturday, May 2
Duluth Flame Nightclub
10:15pm Danecdote
11:15pm The Horror
>>12:15am The Electric Witch<<

Xero Music Subcriptions

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You can now subscribe to Xero Music. What? Why?

This is music that’s not for everyone. This is why I value your support so dearly.
I make a lot of music and this is the best way to get everything in one place. Everything from Dirty Knobs, The Electric Witch and more. Exclusive access to secrets that might not be ready for the wider world. All will be gathered in one place so you will never miss a release and can avoid having to chase things down on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Soundcloud etc. All without any added noise.

And you will also get the ENTIRE back-catalog…that’s over 30 albums!

Of course, if you’re supporting one artist, you are likely to be supporting several artists. With that in mind, I wanted to make your choice as easy as possible by offering a simple year-long subscription for what I hope is a reasonable price. Of course you CAN pay more if you feel so compelled. How much music did you buy last year? At what price? What is this all worth? Adjust accordingly. (Note: I released 9 albums last year, as well as several odds and ends.)

Another thing to consider is that you can stream the entire catalog anywhere, anytime. I do NOT get paid AT ALL for these tens-of-thousands of free streams a year. How often do you listen to Bandcamp songs right from an album page or the app? What might that be worth?

So, what’s in it for you? What’s in store for the next year?

I’m currently planning four (4!) new Electric Witch albums/EPs, a lot of new Dirty Knobs stuff (hoping to play a lot of live shows this year and make as much of that available) as well as an entirely INSANE new project that’s been swimming around for a couple years now. Subscribers will get early access to all new releases as well as exclusive in-progress demos, photos and anything else I can think of. I hope to capture as many live performances as possible on video, which will be subscriber exclusives as well.

Your support will go towards more live gigs, more time spent recording, merch (at a huge discount for subscribers), physical releases (who wants vinyl?) and general musical-life-sustaining needs.
As always, thank you for your continued support. You are all I have.

MORE INFO ON SUBSCRIPTIONS HERE

New album from Dirty Knobs, The Hermit Seeks the Stillness

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The Hermit Seeks the Stillness is the new album from Dirty Knobs. It is twelve songs, each exactly one hour long. It is currently available to pre-order for $1/pay-what-you-want and will be officially released on September 18th, 2014. The full description is below.

==

It took me a long time to understand what these songs were about.

At first I had an image in my mind of an empty room. A room left to its own devices. Maybe just for a moment, maybe for decades, maybe several lifetimes. The still air slowly drifting motes of dust from one corner to another. Sunlight and the moonlight sliding across the walls and the floor. Objects settling, sighing as they slowly dissolve. Rooms full of automation that still ran, its purpose lost.

Then I read a story (http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit) about a modern-day hermit who managed to live in the woods quite near to society for almost thirty years without anyone ever seeing him. He was eventually captured and sent to jail where he quickly fell to pieces.

When asked what he had learned in all that time alone, he replied “Get enough sleep.” Then:

“‘What I miss most,’ he eventually continued, ‘is somewhere between quiet and solitude. What I miss most is stillness…I’d stretch out in the water, float on my back, and look at the stars.’”

And there it was. That’s what these recordings were. The stillness. Whether it’s thirty years of it or just the world pausing for a breath for a couple minutes, that’s what I was looking to capture.

It happens to me often, if not often enough. A still moment. Where I live, when it gets very cold (much colder than the winters our hermit friend managed to endure), this is easy to experience. Sometimes, after the temperature nears more-or-less absolute zero for the twelfth day in a row and you step out into that cold, you can imagine atoms sluggishly clinking together. But there are also summer nights when frog-talk is the only sound, or the wind turns the tall trees into a white noise generator. One can try to hold on to these moments of stillness, but they always pass.

These songs are meant to be…not background music exactly. But something to change the environment around the listener. A sort of sideways transportation to artificially slow time, just as those moments of stillness are ultimately artificial. These songs are not meant to capture those moments, but to instead provide a space for those moments to be captured.

Dirty Knobs – BEDLAM —Soundtrack to a Film that Hasn’t Been Made Based on a Novel that Hasn’t Been Written—

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I’ve had a book idea rolling around in my head for a couple years. It’s become obvious that it may never actually be written, seeing as how I’m not much of a writer. It has always been more of a visual presence in my mind, which has made me think it could easily be a film. I am dramatically less fit to make a movie than to write a novel. But films have soundtracks. This is something I can do. And so have done. BEDLAM is a soundtrack to a film that hasn’t been made based on a novel that hasn’t been written.

At its foundation, BEDLAM is about informational decay running parallel with our own sense of place and memory. It is about the struggle for permanence fighting against inevitable entropy. It is about people and places and ghosts and madness and dreams.

While I have labeled this as a soundtrack, it is far from a traditional one. The songs are not actually meant to be sound beds for visuals on-screen. Instead, they are encapsulations of the scenes (or chapters) themselves, of the characters, events, moods, actions, etc.

This has easily been my most ambitious project since the 8 hour album Field Recordings from the Edge of Hell. Where Field Recordings was essentially about creating an oppressive, expansive sense of wonder and dread, BEDLAM has, for me at least, a very specific arc to the story. Finding ways to convey these (admittedly cloudy) images and tones from my mind into sonic form has been an adventure. I’ve tried to provide hints with both the song titles and sounds within the songs, but for the most part I do hope the listener can find their own paths.

Much of BEDLAM was intentionally recorded using techniques to capture the aberrant whispers of noise and grime hiding around the sounds, smearing and stretching the borders. This breakdown of sound fits very closely to the dreamlike state of chaos and decay that much of the story lives in. Another hint.

I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you share it with others.

KUMD Interview 10/31/12

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Zac spoke with KUMD about Dirty Knobs, The Electric Witch, The Surfactants and much more. You can listen here:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kumd/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=17564

Direct MP3 links:

Part 1
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kumd/.jukebox/media/kumd/1021039/mp3/sessions/podcast/17564/1021039.mp3

Part 2
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kumd/.jukebox/media/kumd/1021040/mp3/sessions/podcast/17564/1021040.mp3

Dirty Knobs – Dream with Portals

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Dirty Knobs – Dream with Portals

Released: July 14, 2011

This is a Portal 2 remix project. The original source material can be downloaded for free (legitimately) at:

www.thinkwithportals.com/music.php

Obsessively edited, filtered, remixed, recorded, layered and extreme sound stretched by Zac Bentz.

LISTEN/BUY

REVIEWS:

“Awesome”
—Destructoid
www.destructoid.com/-dream-with-portals-a-portal-2-remix-project-206610.phtml

“…outstanding…dreamy haunting landscapes you can’t help but get lost in…a complete eargasm.”
—GayGamer
gaygamer.net/2011/11/audio_file_friday_dirty_knobs.html

“If you’re a fan of dark-ambient music or Brian Eno-esque soundscapes, this is a must-listen.”
—Dual Shockers
www.dualshockers.com/2011/07/24/zac-bentz-remixes-the-portal-2-soundtrack-in-dream-with-portals/

“Con este remix, en cambio, disfrutamos de una visión distinta de esas melodías que nos acompañaron sala tras sala, portal tras portal. Dadle una oportunidad, merece la pena.”
—Vida Extra
www.vidaextra.com/musica/dream-with-portals-relajante-remezcla-de-la-bso-de-portal-2

“…I decided to listen to the CD one night, and lo and behold, I was able to not think about my ex and fall asleep fast.”
— gamessavedmylife.tumblr.com/post/9596226765/dream-with-portals

“You need this.”
— www.brennanletkeman.com/blog/

“Superb stuff.”
— aheartfullofhornets.tumblr.com/post/7943957557/portal-2-soundtrack-remixed-by-zac-bentz

“…sure-to-be-rising talent”
— Styrofoam Boots
godsshoeshine.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-music-from-zac-bentz.html

“Allvarligt talat, jag älskar drone!”
— twitter.com#!/ineffablyyours/status/103137753952305153

Zoe Keating – Escape Artist (Dirty Knobs Remix)

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Zoe Keating – “Escape Artist” (Dirty Knobs Remix)

Released: May 24, 2011

Dirty Knobs remix of the Zoë Keating song “Escape Artist” from her album Into the Trees.

Original music by Zoe Keating.

Remix and additional whrrs by Dirty Knobs, aka Zac Bentz.

You can find more from Zoë Keating at: music.zoekeating.com.

LISTEN/BUY

REVIEWS:

“I can’t think of two artists that would go together better than Zoe Keating and Zac Bentz.”
— godsshoeshine.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-music-from-zac-bentz.html

Dirty Knobs – Field Recordings from the Edge of Hell

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Dirty Knobs – Field Recordings from the Edge of Hell

Release: February 1, 2011

Every effort was made to preserve the original quality of this recording. The shifting, actively oppressive nature of the environment had an irreversible effect on both the equipment and personnel. As a result, some damage was permanent.

LISTEN/BUY

REVIEWS: 
“…I have little more to add…I swear I can hear organs playing from inside a pit…Wonderful.”
—Warren Ellis, writer of Transmetropolitan and Gun Machine
www.warrenellis.com?p=11908

“…something quite extraordinary…haunting at points and shimmeringly beautiful at others. It sort of makes me want to listen to it forever.”
—Andrea Swensson, City Pages/Gimme Noise
blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2011/04/dirty_knobs_rel.php

“This is the music of R’lyeh. The songs sung by choirs of fallen angels, the inverse music of the spheres. Qlippothic music…Damn, this stuff EVOKES.”
—MG Farrelly, librarian
www.mgfarrelly.com?p=3341

“[9/10] Dall’altro lato, è un segno forte dell’epoca storica in cui viviamo: così che uno dei più straordinari casi nell’odierna musica ambient (in senso ampio) nasce dalla “banale” manipolazione di un software. Si trattasse anche solo di esperienza sonora una tantum, essenzialmente “epidermica” e destinata all’oblio, il suo valore va ben oltre quello dell’oggetto curioso. Se rifiutandovi di accettarla come opera autonoma aveste l’ardire di chiamarla Truffa, sappiate che io ne ho altrettanto per chiamarlo Miracolo.”
—Michele Palozzo \ ondarock.it
ondarock.it/recensioni/2011_dirtyknobs.htm

“Thick, brooding and unforgiving…an interactive sonic canvas experiment, custom colored by the listener’s current emotional state.”
—Greg Swan, Perfect Porridge
perfectporridge.com/2011/04/27/stream-this-8-hour-ambient-album-from-duluth-based-dirty-knobs/

“…without a doubt, worth all of that hard drive space.”
—GayGamer
gaygamer.net/2011/11/audio_file_friday_dirty_knobs.html

“…what is so remarkable is also just how ‘musical’ it sounds, unlike a lot of dark ambient, both widely praised and obscure, it’s not just a bunch of background sound effects, there’s a real sophistication, elegance, and well, just “composed” feel to these compositions that you can grasp and play over in your head to haunt you long after it’s all ended.”
—EarLobeGrease
rateyourmusic.com/collection/EarLobeGrease/reviews

“4.5/5—Nearly perfect / Uncommon beauty”
“7.5/8—Special record / Truly beautiful”
“4/5—Masterful”
—RateYourMusic
rateyourmusic.com/release/album/dirty_knobs/field_recordings_from_the_edge_of_hell/

“…Sunn O))) meets Arnold Schonberg meets My Bloody Valentine meets Skinny Puppy meets Nurse With Wound in an instrumental wall of sound that’s as psychedelic and horrifying as it is beautiful.”
—Styrofoam Boots
godsshoeshine.blogspot.com/2011/04/bandcamp-roundup-cheapfree-doom-metal.html

“Der Preis für das wahnsinnigste Album des Monats geht aber zweifelsohne…”
— Beat magazine, Germany

“…conjured up all sorts of images from some eternal nether world like a Beksinski painting, or the space and solitude of Dante or Milton’s depictions of Hell, or real life wastelands like an Antarctic plain…”
—email

“…not office music. I realize this now. Sitting at my desk looking around nervously. Not sure who or what to trust.”
—@BenBurton, paranoid office worker

“Spent 9-10 hours with the curtains drawn, lights off and the volume waaaaaaaaaaaaay up and started feeling like I was having an out of body experience. F–king glorious.”
—the_shotgun_rhetoric
boards.adultswim.com/t5/General-Music-Discussion/Xero-Music/m-p/59968178/message-uid/59968178

“I’m not quite sure if I’d qualify that as hipster music. Unless the hipster was also a lich or something.”
—comment
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12916537000A37233500&page=2#47

“…feels more like a soundtrack to…well anything dreary…It’s hard to pick a favorite…”
—Daily CD Discoveries
dailycddiscoveries.blogspot.com/2011/02/dirty-knobs-field-recordings-from-edge.html

“Amazing dark ambient, very long. Great stuff.”
—Badger Blog
badger.livejournal.com/1859069.html

“I Think We May Have Just Received Tr00′s Album Of The Year In Our Email”
—Number of the Blog
thenumberoftheblog.com/2011/02/05/i-think-we-may-have-just-recieved-tr00s-album-of-the-year-in-our-email/

“…something amazing…I get all sorts of ideas for really weird games.”
—Krystian Majewski
gamedesignreviews.com/scrapbook/field-recordings-from-the-edge-of-hell/

“La mia camera ora è una grotta e mi preparo un fuoco contro i dinosauri fluorescenti che mi attendono all’uscita.”
—Vice Magazine
www.viceland.com/it/a7n3/htdocs/records-it-746.php

“…ponad 480 minut drone/ambient/noisu tylko dla twardzieli.”
—Neiz nas tego
nieznasztego.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/presspack-29/

Twitter:

“@theQuietus: Listening to eight hour long noise album called ‘Field Recordings From The Edge Of Hell’. That’s livin’ alright.”

“I can see this driving me crazy after a while. Well, crazier.” @aspeed

“…one of the best atmospheric albums I’ve ever heard.” @Greydius

“I bought this…over two months ago and I’ve gotten so much listening of it / I dare you to listen to this whole album in one sitting” @syphoon

“What a bargain: one dollar for eight hours of beautiful noise…” @_allroy

“Best background music for concentrating on work so far” @davidjbarton

“Hämmentävää kamaa.” @mandrl

“AWESUM DRONE DOOM” @agpublic

Email:
“It’s sort of put me in this state where everything else in my playlists sounds annoyingly short.”

“…conjured up all sorts of images from some eternal nether world like a Beksinski painting, or the space and solitude of Dante or Milton’s depictions of Hell, or real life wastelands like an Antarctic plain…”

“The fire horns is amazing.”

“Keep me informed of further episodes of insanity.”

“Big.”

Interviews:
fun.areavoices.com/2011/02/19/zac-bentz-and-his-8-hour-tour/

godsshoeshine.blogspot.com/2011/06/token-of-my-extreme-and-now-for.html