Nick Knox

Location: Dunedin

Challenge: Leg Amputee / Mental Health

Website: nicknoxmusic.wordpress.com

Nick Knox is a composer, pianist, and singer. He was the subject of a BBC funded documentary “The Characteristics of C-Minor” (2014) which screened in 20 International Film Festivals.

Nick’s sound is at once gruff, delicate, and soulful, laced with baroque sensibilities. Complex polyphonies, Arabic scales, improvised keys and a dark multi flecked voice. Nick’s ethos of music-making is one of soul-work: he enters into trancelike spaces, creating fully felt and emotionally charged musical explorations. Dunedin Music commentator Bill Morris writes this of Nicks work: "Nick’s music is thrilling, strange and utterly unique. Imagine Rammstein’s tour bus, with a troupe of Tibetan throat singers on board, crashing into the middle of a Bach recital and you can begin to imagine the sound."

Nick recalls his first serious foray as a performing musician about three years ago. He says "It was while I still was on the rehabilitation ward, learning to walk with my prosthetic, I was playing in the art room and some of the fellow recoverers wanted to come and be an audience. They were so into what I was doing, and so encouraging, that I asked some of my friends working at a small bar whether I could come and play. So, I did. There were kind of rapturous responses. It was a massive confidence boost and set the trajectory".

Nick has recently released his second album and is planning regional tours.

Nick adds "Imagine Rammstein's tour bus, with a troupe of Tibetan throat singers on board, crashing into the middle of a Bach recital, and you can begin to imagine the sound. It is the spontaneous expression of many years' isolation and mental as well as physical ill-health, I don't want my fingers to do something and then they do that. My fingers play. I put them on the keyboard and they play. A recurrent theme is damage. Emotional damage, psychological damage, physical damage. I create my music based around my music and feeling states, and to connect with people".

Nick Knox - The Characteristics of C-Minor.