Fre4knc is Bertran van den Hoff, a drum and bass producer from Groningen. His music draws on the darker, technical sound of the late 1990s, with releases through Flexout Audio, Dispatch Recordings, and Critical Music. His catalogue also makes room for hip-hop-influenced halftime and collaborations with Amoss.
He approaches sound design through experimentation. For Rotor, he recorded a finger circling the rim of a glass and spent two days processing the result. A distorted bird sound supplied a hi-hat, while the bassline received similarly close attention.
The Alein EP on Flexout widened that range with Apophenia, a techno collaboration with his Groningen neighbour The Futurist. Little Things followed as another solo EP, with van den Hoff describing a renewed interest in melody during his 2022 interview about the release.
