Dave Okumu - Knopperz (LP)

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 Ware’s 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. It’s a producer’s 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. Okumu’s 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 hand‑rolled and human.

A lot of the magic sits in the way he treats source material. Knopperz is built largely from fragments of Duval Timothy’s 2020 album Help, recontextualised into new shapes. You can pick out the DNA if you know Timothy’s work, those tender piano voicings and hushed textures, but Okumu doesn’t 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. It’s collage, but with a songwriter’s ear for contour and release.

There’s a quiet lineage running through it too. If you have a soft spot for J Dilla’s swing or MF DOOM’s crate‑dug 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 they’re breathing. A hi‑hat opens a whisker, a bass note lingers a fraction longer than expected, a piano loop frays at the edges and suddenly your shoulders drop. It’s understated, but not slight.

What keeps me coming back is the emotional throughline. Knopperz never goes in for big statements, yet it’s quietly full of them. There’s 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. It’s music for thinking, or not thinking, depending on the hour. And it rewards volume. Turn it up and you catch the micro‑textures, the little clicks and room noise, the specific way the low end hugs the track rather than bulldozing it.

If you’ve followed Okumu’s work as a sideman, it’s 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. It’s easy to hear why singers trust him. He’s 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 low‑end warmth and grainy midrange sit nicely on wax, and it’s the kind of album that makes a room feel a couple of degrees softer. If you’re browsing a Melbourne record store or sifting through vinyl records Australia wide, file it near your beat tapes and left‑field jazz‑adjacent gems. And if your local is out, it’s 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 producer‑led projects, Knopperz stands out by doing less and meaning more. It feels lived‑in and kind, like a well‑worn jumper that still smells faintly of last night’s gig. If Dave Okumu vinyl is new to you, start here. It’s a quiet flex from a musician who understands that taste is its own instrument, and that sometimes the softest touch leaves the deepest mark.