Knower (USA)

Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi have been active as the duo Knower since 2009. Their distinctive jazz-funk-electronic music is built on Cole's unusual rhythmic patterns and Artadi's vocals. Their increasingly popular duo made a big leap forward in 2023, with the release of the Knower Forever album after a seven-year hiatus, which was one of the year's favorites among music fans. The band will embark on a world tour in 2025, performing their songs with an expanded lineup, fortunately also playing at the House of Music on October 18.

Knower was founded by two musicians who studied and graduated in jazz departments at various music schools in Los Angeles, and both have a very broad interpretation of genre boundaries. Genevieve Artadi began in a trip-hop-inspired electropop band called Pollyn, and once she met Louis Cole, they launched Knower. The duo, which freely handles jazz-funk and pimps it with all sorts of contemporary electronic dance music elements (formerly with dubstep, even drum’n’bass), represents the progressive branch of the genre, and their music is composed of mathematical rhythmic patterns, extravagant creativity, and beautiful melodies creating a unique world related to vibrant hyperpop, yet retaining much of its jazz roots.

In the first few years, Knower was very productive, releasing several albums, but after the 2016 album titled Life, the musicians also devoted time to other projects. Artadi released solo albums, while Cole partly concentrated on his quite avant-garde other band (Clown Core is fundamentally a formation of two anonymous musicians) and partly on his solo career. Between 2018 and 2024, he released four funk-jazz albums under the Brainfeeder label, earning himself a Grammy nomination. Their 2023 comeback was a big hit, with the extremely successful Bandcamp campaign for Knower Forever making the album highly sought-after, which they will tour with in 2025, promising a truly memorable show with additional musicians.