Know V.A.’s ‘Purity’ pares back on the brute violence & control of early Dutch hardcore with the synthetic sheen of our current end times

, 13 May 2019
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Know V.A. is releasing EP Strange Days on Helsinki’s Signal Life on May 17, with preview track ‘Purity’ premiering on AQNB today. The Amsterdam-based duo operates in the Dutch early hardcore revival, creating cross-cultural events that showcase the continuation of the 90s hard dance style in the millennial underground.

The music and aesthetic of the EP shares similarities with artists like Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones and their Fractal Fantasy production unit, while being less influenced by the mercurial bass and syncopated beats of post-grime and footwork, and more the peaks and drops of trance and the overdriven, distorted square waves of gabber. These pounding and ecstatic elements are most keenly noticeable in ‘Purity’, which echoes at the centre of other harsh and intersecting samples, including one of ‘The Ha Dance’ that’s been contorted into almost complete imperceptibility.**

Know V.A.’sStrange Days EP is out on Helsinki’s Signal Life on May 17, 2019.