Have You Ever Been To A Noise Night?: Inside Knots, London’s Interdisciplinary Noise Collective
Have You Ever Been To A Noise Night? Inside Knots, London’s Interdisciplinary Noise Collective [Oscillations Festival Tickets] Words by Eli Callingham 9 October 2026 “Never Been To A Noise Night?” It’s a question that kept appearing on my Instagram feed in late March, written in bold black and white. I hadn’t considered it before and I was unsure if any of my experiences qualified. I immediately thought of Evic Shen, who I’d seen perform in late 2022, alongside a plethora of other noise musicians or experimental nights I’d encountered around London. Housed at Cafe Oto or IKLECTIK, perhaps performance art caught in art-school-adjacent spaces or the more electronic underbelly – Ormside Projects, maybe a show or two put on by promoter Baba Yaga’s Hut. What I had less experience with was the kind of DIY environment and sense of participation I associated with noise from afar. Shows I’d seen recorded in the back of a coffee/book/record shop, miscellaneous spaces with cluttered backdrops, their cause an earnest one, wholeheartedly DIY, music/art/multi-disciplinary, with their hearts on their sleeves. That image wasn’t too dissimilar from the experience of Knots’s first noise night, as co-founder, poet and performer Oscar Rodriguez (who performs as ‘vanchoked’) recalled when I spoke to him and fellow co-founder, producer and sound artist, Cuttfruit, on a call earlier this month. “Knots 1, we did it at MayDay Rooms in their small archival space, the tiniest room in the world. It’s like the size of a living room, and we sat. We had about 50 people, like way over the capacity. I think the capacity was maybe 30? But we were pushing it. And so the performance space was tight and crowded. We were standing next to each other, shoulder to shoulder – it was incredible! We had like two speakers that we were renting from a uni, two speakers from someone’s [Cuttfruit’s] bedroom, a system that we put together. And, you know, it was beautiful! I really want to do more unconventional spaces.” Knots I at MayDay Rooms – Photos by Joshua Bendall (@joshua.bendall) Oscar and Cuttfruit met in 2025 in Brixton at a queer zine fair, although it wasn’t until Cuttfruit saw Oscar perform at his final residency performance in Kingston that the possibility of working together really clicked. As Cuttfruit recalls,“We had various pieces we developed together over that year and towards the end of it with our own experiences of creative circles in London, we thought that we could come together to make something that felt new.” The conversation regarding Knots arose later that summer. Before that, Oscar had been invited to be a part of a tour back in America with his noise mentor Andrea Pensado. https://youtu.be/KspVGrJrhpg?si=uIA5ngS9d-gmUCCF “She’s a classically trained musician, but like does this fucked up vocal distortion and she uses puppets to do short acts. She’s a sixty something Argentinian woman based in Salem, and she does harsh noise music and has done it for the last twenty to thirty years. She’s just absolutely incredible!” Over four days, they travelled through Rhode Island, Boston and New York City, performing within small, local DIY communities of noise nights. For Oscar, the experience was inspiring, if at times unfamiliar. vanchoked: Knots III – Photo by Eli Callingham (@elicallingham) “I felt very grateful, but also really awkward because I feel like there was an American sensibility that I had lost since I moved and maybe one I never truly had… They were playing purely noise or sound, and I was doing my poetry with VCV rack.” Oscar returned from the trip inspired by the communities he had encountered across the American noise scene. Cuttfruit, meanwhile, had come away from a performance feeling misunderstood for their sound. Oscar recollects: “So we put those two feelings together, and then Knots came up out of this frustration we had that the experimental noise scene in London had a high barrier of entry. You need to know certain people.” One reason for this high barrier, Oscar suggests, could be the scene’s obsession with aesthetics. “It’s not that I rebuke aesthetics; I do all of the design for Knots! I understand the power of aesthetics and outreach and in creating an identity for a project, but I think a lot of time within London, that’s all that people have to give. And that’s so valid. I don’t disavow that. I’ve gone to those nights; I put on one of those nights, but they don’t give me any sense of fulfillment, or I don’t leave the club, or these events, without feeling any more community than before I went into that space.” For Cuttfruit, Knots offered a practical way of bridging disciplines and making those collaborations happen. “Given we both occupied different spaces in music and performance in London we both wanted access to lots of different kinds of people, to work across different disciplines, and we knew they were out there but with no idea where they were… which I feel like is a very common feeling amongst the social media generations of “Where is everybody?”” Cuttfruit & a nightingale: Knots III – Photo by Eli Callingham (@elicallingham) They had both encountered improvisation nights that brought different practices together, but were more interested in the possibilities of developing something collaboratively over a relatively short period, before an idea could “overbake”. Politics, too, would be central to the performance nights from the outset. In particular, there was a focus on creating opportunities for working class artists: “We seek to champion those people that get to the end of their shift and still create, find time to squeeze in some writing on their lunch break. People who must support themselves and still feel that burning desire within them to share their art with the world deserve space. I still don’t think class is spoken about anywhere near as much as it should be, in every field.” That idea of creating the conditions for collaboration was probably what first drew me towards Knots. I’d
TNAM Picks: Future Days 2026
← Back Festival Playlist,TNAM.UK Playlist Future Days 2026 Playlist by George Bicknell It’s nearly time for Digbeth, Birmingham’s iconic creative quarter, to become a hub for music lovers everywhere as Future Days 2026 takes over The Crossing. This alternative music event, organised by This Is Tmrw, is once again spotlighting some of the most exciting artists from the worlds of post-punk, indie, dance, and everything in between on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th October. Previous performers include Black Country, New Road, Lambrini Girls, and Gurriers. [Buy tickets here] All Genres (Mix) {{ reviewsTotal }}{{ options.labels.singularReviewCountLabel }} {{ reviewsTotal }}{{ options.labels.pluralReviewCountLabel }} {{ options.labels.newReviewButton }} {{ userData.canReview.message }} You Might Also Like Recent Posts