Hardcore techno
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Hardcore techno is a kind of techno music closely related to the Gabba style. It originated in the early- to mid-1990s in largely industrial or post-industrial cities (Rotterdam, New York City, Newcastle, New South Wales) and simultaneously in commercial dance techno music looking for a harder sound; Mescalinum United's "We Have Arrived" (PCP 006, 1990) is considered by many to be the first hardcore track. It is typified by fast (160-300BPM) repetitive beats, often with a compressed kick-drum. It is considered a descendant of Industrial music and the more atonal, beat oriented early electronic music.
Hardcore techno is often obsessed with the obscene, morose, morbid, explicitly sexual or profane. Partly, this is because hardcore enthusiasts enjoy negative sensations, partly because they enjoy ironic provocation of other people's fears and aversions. Generally, hardcore techno seeks the social relationship which early punk rock or ska had: ironic, working class, demi-political, and seeking to transcend the oppressions of everyday life.
Like all electronic dance music, hardcore techno rapidly produced sub-variants:
- Happy hardcore is probably the best known variant, which aims at invigorating and uplifting rapid dancing as opposed to the normally morbid focus.
- Speedcore and Terrorcore come closer to the original vision of rapid beats and dark sounds.
- Additionally a large amount of hardcore involves the use of breakbeats and tends towards Drum and Bass and Jungle. One example of this style of hardcore is breakcore.
- Often hardcore is classified by the city in which it was produced, the Newcastle sound, the Frankfurt sound, the French sound.
Innovative hardcore often goes beyond the simplistic limits of commercialised hardcore techno. One factor in this has been the way in which hardcore techno is usually composed, on home computers with module tracker software. This means that many ordinary people can engage in writing music. The criticism that the early Amiga and PC sound was "8-bit shit" became an article of pride amongst composers of hardcore music. The wide availability of the necessary instruments -- home computers -- combined with the absence of financial remuneration means that most good hardcore techno musicians write for their own enjoyment and the pleasure of innovation.
Alternate styles of Hardcore techno
As with any other dance music genre the meaning of the phrase 'Hardcore Techno' is not hard and fast but rather varies from place to place and time to time.
In relation to the flowering of British electronic dance music different styles developed. Some focused on beat and tone oriented music, as opposed to vocal, diva or sample-oriented music. A similar tendency occurred in America. This style could be broadly described as Hard house or Hardcore techno. It developed separately to the Hardcore techno mentioned above and is distinguished from it by its slower pace (120-160BPM), its lack of aggressive sounds and its lack of morbid themes. It also lacks the distorted, compressed kick drum typical of the other hardcore techno. A more extensive discussion of this type of hardcore techno can be found at the entry Breakbeat hardcore.
Belgian New Beat music was original trying to be the slowest kind of techno. Most people got irritated with the slow beats claiming it to be boring or mundane. Another story that most people and listeners hear about hardcore techno is that it started in rave clubs. What would happen is that people would get "high" off and techno and trance music would be too slow for the people on the dance floor, so djs started to play house records faster then they were original intended to be played.
See also
External links
- HardSound Gabber Portal (http://www.hardsound.net)
- Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (http://www.ishkur.com/music/)
- Gabber Dot Org (http://www.gabber.org)
Record labels:
- Industrial Strength Records (http://www.industrialstrengthrecords.com)
- Things To Come Records (http://thingstocome.com)
- Black Monolith Records (http://www.blackmonolith.com)
- Rotterdam Records (http://www.rotterdamrecords.com/)
- Enzyme Records (http://www.enzyme.nl)
- Neophyte Records (http://www.neophyte.nl)
- Deathchant Records (http://www.deathchant.com)
- Epileptik Records (http://www.epileptik.fr)
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