Mike & Rich

Expert Knob Twiddlers
Studio album by Mike & Rich
Released	June 24, 1996 (1996-06-24)
Recorded	1994-1996
Genre	IDM
Length	57:51
Label	Rephlex

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Pitchfork	(6.6/10)

Expert Knob Twiddlers is a 1996 studio album by Mike Paradinas and Richard D. James. It was released in 1996 on Rephlex Records.

On 14 July 2016, Planet Mu announced that a reissued version would be released with seven bonus tracks in September 2016.

Mike Paradinas described the sound of the album as "an updated version of easy listening and funk". James had heard the music Paradinas had made under the name of Jake Slazenger and invited him to create tracks. Paradinas noted James had invited other artists to collaborate with him, including Luke Vibert, Squarepusher and Cylob and was honoured that his collaborative tracks were chosen for the release. Both artists were getting drunk while developing tracks, something that Paradinas stated that neither artist regularly did.

The track "Giant Deflating Football" was written during the 1994 FIFA World Cup. Paradinas noted that the two "were able to quite quickly write a large amount of material. "Giant Deflating Football" is named because it had some quite weird percussion sounds made by scraping and blowing in a microphone. It sounded like a big wheezing football. We took a bit of acid afterwards to listen to it, and we were coming out with some imagery like 'Beady Eyes', which is mentioned in one of the tracks."

Expert Knob Twiddlers was released by Rephlex Records on June 24, 1996 on audio cassette, compact disc and vinyl. Paradinas felt the album should have been released as early as 1994, stating that "At that time, that style was something that no one else had done [...] It wasn't like anything anyone heard before really. By the time it did come out, a lot of things came out like Carbon Trio and there was a lot of revived interest in easy listening. Neither of us was prepared for it."

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Wikipedia