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Friday, June 7, 2024

10 Dark, Melancholic and Haunting Hardcore Techno-Adjacent Tracks

Hardcore Techno is a genre known for its ferocious aggression, for it's "go straight for the throat" mentality, for aggressive postures, images, artworks.
Yet, paradoxically, there is also hardcore music with a more moody quality, maybe a calmer, subdued, more "silent" essence - dark, haunting, and melancholic tracks.
These tracks are not necessarily less wild or energetic - they're just more bleak and nihilistic, attached to the perimeter of all the hardcore anger.
These strange attractors once more showcase the quality of hardcore techno to mend and overcome seemingly contradictions and dual opposites.
Again, this is not just about hardcore, but also hardcore-adjacent genres.
But, now, let's go. "Music, maestro, please!"

1. Current 909 - The Lockdown

The vocal intro is taken from "ghosts... of the civil dead". If you have seen the movie, you will know it's one of the most drab, nihilist, dystopic movies out there.
The track evokes feeling of claustrophobia, being locked up, social control and cultural oppression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zttXZgPLe2Q




2. Taciturne - Mourning

Sorrow and austerity permeate this track. The angelic choirs portray the feeling of a funeral rite. Beautiful and frightening.
"Mourning", indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IP0XgsuXFI




3. Somatic Responses - Umbrella

A listener once described this track as evoking images of "burnt out landscapes and ruins of destroyed cities" before his mental eye. We could not agree more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjWQA2Ro_XI




4. Kerosene feat. 4E - Heroin

A very grim "hardcore" dub track. This is amongst the most dismal. The completely non-melodic, disturbing rendition of the lyrics to velvet underground's classic song is guaranteed to haunt you for a long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI9IpJGKExk




5. Frozen - Soul Saver

Stirring sounds made up of very strong emotions.
If your soul stands in peril - this track might verily save it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNc9Sg9VTdE




6. Alec Empire - Blutrote Nacht Über Berlin

More subdued and "chilled" than Alec's total-aggression tracks.
The title translates to "blood red sky over berlin" and imho it feels like watching the sky at night, alone, isolated, and drowning in a wave of bittersweet sadness.





7. FFM Shadow Orchestra - D.N. Acid

"From here to there, from star to star..."
Powerful sentiments of infinite cosmic melancholy define this wonderful track by the Shadow Orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RIfnHXO9r0




8. Arrivers - The Arrival

Just four notes, a hardcore beat, and sparse percussion plus effects. Yet this minimal approach is able to generate a very strong feeling of desolation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD8P0_7m76k




9. Disintegrator - In The Sun

Cold, slow, marching Techno beats. The "Defcon, Defcon" voice creates the feeling of a nuclear apocalypse going down. Aligned with this, the haunting choirs morph into howling sirens towards the end of the track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AyvjLrw1uc




10. Tanochinjaii - Fallen Angel

One of Cold Rush's best and most forlorn tracks.
Falling from grace, and falling out of the sky, out of the heavens.
Is there hope for redemption, after all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgAaq1RGWTk

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