Louis Maxwell Cole (born December 4, 1986) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and video producer who is the drummer, keyboardist, and bassist of the independent electronic jazz-funk duo Knower. He is speculated to be a member of the avant-garde musical duo Clown Core.
Cole has released five albums with Knower and four albums with Clown Core, beginning in 2010. As a solo artist, he self-released two albums before signing with Brainfeeder and releasing his third album, Time (2018). His fourth album, Quality Over Opinion (2022), was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Jazz Album.
Early life Louis Cole was born in Los Angeles to a family with musical roots. His father plays jazz piano, while his mother played bass. Cole started drumming when he was 8. He graduated in jazz studies at the USC Thornton School of Music in 2009.
Career After graduating from USC in 2009, Cole was encouraged by his friend Jack Conte to put music videos on YouTube, including one called "Bank Account", which showcased a split-screen of him playing keyboards, drums, and singing. This video catapulted him into the public awareness, as it was posted on social media by various celebrities and musicians such as John Mayer, Charlie Day, and Björk.
After doing several other short songs and uploading them to YouTube, Cole wanted to focus more on writing longer material. He co-founded Knower with another jazz studies graduate, Genevieve Artadi. In 2010, he released both his self-titled solo album and the debut album for Knower. After releasing his second solo album, he focused more on Knower, producing three other albums. In the meantime, Cole co-wrote "Padded Cell" for Seal's 2015 album 7, and together with Artadi, got featured on Snarky Puppy's Family Dinner – Volume 2. In 2017, he co-wrote two songs for Thundercat's album Drunk. This led to signing a contract with Flying Lotus' label Brainfeeder and releasing his third solo album through the label in 2018. The album featured appearances by Artadi, Thundercat, Dennis Hamm and Brad Mehldau. Cole also appeared on Thundercat's 2020 Grammy Award winning album It Is What It Is, performing on a song called "I Love Louis Cole", which was dedicated to him.
In 2019, Cole's "Doing the Thing" was the 80th-best-performing single on the Tokio Hot 100. In 2020, Cole wrote an exclusive song for Grand Theft Auto Online called "Planet X", which was added to the FlyLo FM radio station through The Cayo Perico Heist update. Knower's song "Fuck the Makeup, Skip the Shower" was previously featured on the same radio station. "Planet X" was later included in Cole's fourth studio album Quality Over Opinion, which was released on October 14, 2022 via Brainfeeder. Another single from the album, "Let it Happen", was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals in 2023, and the album as a whole was nominated for Best Alternative Jazz Album the following year.
It is speculated that Cole and saxophonist Sam Gendel are behind Clown Core, a surrealist musical duo of two anonymous clowns who blend grindcore, jazz, and electronic music.
Artistry
Style and writing Cole is a classically trained jazz musician and multi-instrumentalist who plays drums, keyboards, guitar and bass, sings, and produces his material. His work contains elements from a diverse range of music genres such as jazz, funk, pop, avant-garde, electronic, lo-fi (early) and grindcore (with Clown Core). Cole is a "bedroom" musician who does not like working in a professional recording studio. He practices drums for four hours a day, and writes music for seven hours a day. Cole feels his mission is to write his own favorite music, and he "never [tries] to make [his] music accessible to anyone." He is known for using strange and counterintuitive chord progressions. His lyrics often include humor and vulgarity, and his music features home-made videos. Cole is more creative during the early hours of the day, and documents this phenomenon on his song, "The Weird Part of the Night".
Influences Cole's influences include his father, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Beach Boys, Boards of Canada, Nate Wood, The Beatles, and Skrillex, among others. Cole is also influenced by science fiction and video game sounds and visuals, and notes that the music of classic Nintendo games and Tron shaped Knower's aesthetic:
Cole is best friends with Thundercat, who has called him "one of Los Angeles's greatest musicians". Flying Lotus has also expressed admiration for Cole on Twitter, calling him "super inspirational" during the writing of his album Flamagra.
Reception Bob Mintzer has described Cole as "the paradigm for today's musician". Will Schube of Passion of the Weiss has compared Cole's "auteur approach" to that of another Los Angeles musician, Ariel Pink. Emma Roller of The Brick House Cooperative has described Cole as "a dopey yet cerebral jazz composer and percussionist who whaps out brain-meltingly complex beats with Terminator-like precision".
Discography Studio albums Solo albums Title Album details Louis Cole Released: February 10, 2010 Label: Self-released Format: CD, digital download Album 2 Released: March 22, 2011 Label: Self-released Format: CD, digital download Time Released: August 10, 2018 Label: Brainfeeder Format: CD, vinyl, digital download, streaming Quality Over Opinion Released: October 14, 2022 Label: Brainfeeder Format: CD, vinyl, digital download, streaming Some Unused Songs Released: May 11, 2023 Label: Brainfeeder Format: digital download, streaming Nothing (with Metropole Orkest) Released: August 9, 2024 Label: Brainfeeder Format: CD, vinyl, digital download, streaming With Knower
Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi (2010) Think Thoughts (2011) Let Go (2013) Life (2016) Knower Forever (2023)
With Clown Core
Clown Core (2010) Toilet (2018) Van (2020) 1234 (2021)
Live albums Title Album details LIVE 2019 Released: July 6, 2020 Label: Brainfeeder Format: Digital download, streaming
Extended plays Title Details Live Sesh and Xtra Songs Released: April 5, 2019 Label: Brainfeeder Format: Digital download, streaming
Singles As lead artist Title Year Album "Weird Part of the Night" 2016 Time "Bank Account" 2017 rowspan=3 "Thinking" "Blimp" "Things" 2018 Time "Doing the Things" 2019 "Let It Happen" 2022 Quality Over Opinion "I'm Tight" "Not Needed Anymore" "Dead Inside Shuffle" "Things Will Fall Apart" 2024 Nothing "Life" "These Dreams are Killing Me" "nothing" As featured artist Title Year Album "The Grid Generation" 2023 The Lucky One
Production and songwriting These are writing and production credits for music outside of Knower, Clown Core, or his own solo work.
TitleYearArtistAlbumNotes "Padded Cell" 2015 Seal 7 Co-writer 2020 Jacob Mann 106 Mastered
Other appearances TitleYearCredited artist(s)Album "Bus in These Streets" 2016 Thundercat Drunk "Jameel's Space Ride" 2018 Jacob Mann Big Band Greatest Hits, Vol 2 "Tonight" 2018 Sam Wilkes Wilkes "Descending" "It Gets Funkier IV" Vulfpeck Hill Climber "Edge of the Cliff" 2020 Genevieve Artadi Dizzy Strange Summer "Hope Song" "Hits!" Henry Solomon and Logan Kane 2023 Genevieve Artadi Forever Forever "Mad Hope" Gen Hoshino Lighthouse "The End of Time" 2025 Darren Korb Hades II Original Soundtrack"—" denotes he wasn't on one song, but an entire album.
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