Knurl is the noise music project of Alan Bloor, Canadian experimental composer and sculptor (his ambient music project is called Pholde). Based in Toronto, Ontario, Bloor has been performing and recording Knurl material since 1994, when his seminal harsh noise releases "Nervescrap" and "Initial Shock" were recorded and released. He has released over twenty albums internationally, and has collaborated with sound sculptors such as Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, and Aube.

Knurl's objective is to take music and strip it entirely of what we know music to be: it’s 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.

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 1980’s 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 or 3rd bridge 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 Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Detroit, and has explored a less harsh side of noise music in his acclaimed ambient music project called Pholde.

Labels that have released Knurl material include Alien8 Recordings, RRRecords, Solipsism, Harshnoise, Troniks, Gameboy, and Obscurica.

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