Artists You Should Know: Revel In The Dreamy Shoegaze Of Los Angeles Duo The Know And Their New EP "The Know EP2"

The Know — the dream pop/shoegaze project of Los Angeles couple Daniel Knowles and Jennifer Farmer — have shared another spellbinding release with the arrival of their The Know EP2. Formed in late 2018 after they decided to forgo spending the holidays visiting their respective homes (being new transplants to the city) in favor of staying put and attempting to create some music together. Holing up with nothing but this creative desire and their mutual love for Beach House, Julee Cruise, Ye Ye, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. The result was the debut EP wearetheknow, which introduced the duo’s love of gauzily ethereal soundscapes and surreally intimate lyricism.

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Completed during the pandemic and the isolation of quarantine, The Know EP2 harnesses a wide breadth of emotion to capture a visceral but honest glimpse at their lives (and the lives of others) during such a period of uncertainty and disconnection. After passing through the eerie but bewitching portal that is “Ncjc” — a ghostly crescendo of electronica haze and Farmer’s gloaming vocals — you arrive completely engulfed in The Know’s beguiling sonic world. One that overlays its pained ruminations on life during the pandemic with radiant dreaminess.

“Used To Be” looks at the ways that relationships were tested within the intense isolation. Laying on the melancholy and heartache thick as the song’s wall of sound grows and grows alongside Farmer’s still lambent words. But it’s not all doom and gloom — as “Me” traces tenderly the lush warmth of a relationship and love that doesn’t fall apart but grows deeper because of such strife.

Like “You,” the song reveals the thin line that exists between The Know’s emotionally prismatic sound, which lends itself to the somber as much as the rhapsodic. While the EP’s closing track “Just Say It” erupts as the more sonically kinetic on the collections, as Farmer’s ecstatic cries burst through the hypnotic atmosphere conjured up by Knowles. And if you find yourself rightfully enamored with all things created by The Know at the end of the EP then you’ll want to dive immediately into their first one wearetheknow as you await eagerly like us for what will no doubt be a stellar debut LP.