Comprehension of Sweet Sounds: A New Section Dedicated to the Occult, the Symbolic, and the Philosophical in Hardcore.

“Shadows of shadows passing. The comprehension of sweet sounds is our most indefinite conception. Music when combined with a pleasurable idea is poetry. Music without an idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacombs and the dead… motionless.”

• Spoken by Orson Welles, written by Edgar Allan Poe

Techno and Hardcore have a rich tradition of conveying ideas through the inherent limitations of a genre that often lacks lyrics. This is achieved through the use of vocal samples and the cut-up technique, inherited from industrial music, to establish a central idea or emotion for the track. Synthesizers and beats act as futuristic onomatopoeias, evoking spaces. Creative use of samplers and sound design is employed to evoke emotions. The track's architecture itself represents a synaptic landscape or an escape to otherworldly realms. These are all techniques intrinsic to Hardcore Techno, appearing in each track to varying degrees, as it is the medium’s way of communicating.

However, despite the commonality of these qualities, there are times when certain tracks or sounds push beyond the usual boundaries. Sometimes this occurs by expressing an idea or emotion rarely found in Hardcore, which we have explored earlier in this e-zine. Instead, in this section, we will focus on those sounds and tracks that break through the veil of the obvious. These are tracks that, through symbols inherent to Hardcore, express hidden or philosophical ideas, making us reconsider music and reality, deepening our understanding of the genre and expanding its expressive possibilities.

In this first article of this new section, we begin with an analysis of the EP "Comprehension of Sweet Sounds" by FFM Shadow Orchestra, which gives its name to this section. This serves as a starting point to explore tracks that challenge our understanding of Hardcore and music in general. This particular track, through its ingenious use of sounds, art, quotes, and symbols, compels us to question the very nature of Hardcore as a musical genre. Thus, we have an EP that stands out not only for the quality and intensity of its tracks but also for its ability to lead us into a dark reflection on Hardcore Techno, using some of the most iconic sounds of the genre.

Key to understanding this EP is the Edgar Allan Poe quote about music and ideas found on its back cover. “Sampled and processed” by Orson Welles and resampled by FFM Shadow Orchestra, it is not just a poetic analogy for the genealogies of resamples so intrinsic to Hardcore. It also provides us with a crucial metaphor for understanding these samples of samples as shadows of shadows. We will explain this in depth.

As the text on the back cover of the record points out, the “comprehension of sweet sounds” is our most indefinite conception as listeners of music in any of its forms. In other words, music opposes the clarity of ideas and concepts, a challenge that becomes more acute in genres like Hardcore Techno, which often lacks lyrics. Facing this difficulty, the title track of the EP (specifically the Stickhead Remix) tells us: “Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music, without the idea… is simply music.” After a brief prelude of breaks that guides us to the core of the track, a new sample tells us "Shadows of shadows... the dead".

And then we are assaulted by an intense and bombastic choral riff, as if a multitude of specters were howling in our faces, unwilling to confine themselves to the afterlife. The rest of the track becomes a drastic and syncopated onslaught of kicks and snares where the howls repeat and insist with various patterns, confronting us with their presence, their insistent and inconsistent repetition, creating a track with a primitive, spectral, and unpredictable vibe.

And in the eye of the hurricane of this furious swarm of howling specters, the question arises: isn’t the iconic choral stab of T99, resampled ad infinitum in Hardcore since the early '90s, precisely that? The shadow of a shadow of a shadow. The voices of a choral ensemble, captured in an audio recording, sampled and processed by T99, to be resampled or emulated by FFM Shadow Orchestra and countless hardcore producers over the past three decades. What started as a singular human chant became multiple shadows of shadows, immortalizing this choir beyond the limits of time and space. The ghost in the machine no longer corresponds to the consciousness that emerges from the circuits, but to human energy captured in them.

This already suggestive proposition is further reinforced by the EP's cover art. It features several elements: a wolf howling at the moon, a kind of vortex or tear in reality, and the duplication of this set through an inverted mirror effect. Wolf, moon, vortex, mirror. Considering these in relation to the track itself, the cover seems to allude to the same idea of a spectral howl that tears or twists reality, connecting it to the beyond or another dimension, to the madness symbolized by the moon, and to repetition. It is as if it describes in an occult and symbolic manner the essence of what hardcore techno and rave were at that time: howls repeating, within the track, between tracks, like a horde of necromancers conjuring spirits and unknown energies to drag the audience into a ritual dedicated to madness and the unreal. Similarly, the back cover of the record contains an ode to the goddess Juno, deifying the Roland Alpha Juno 2 synthesizer, responsible for the other most iconic Hardcore Rave sound of that era: the Hoover or Mentasm. Thus, completing this work that pays homage to the sonic deities of Hardcore.

To avoid prolonging this extended reflection, we close this feature by celebrating the evident effort of FFM Shadow Orchestra to contemplate the essence of this style and communicate these complex ideas. They do this by using the elemental building blocks of Hardcore Techno, well-arranged symbols, and an excellent quote. This symbolic staging challenges us to go beyond the empty repetition of these shadows/samples, which, on the contrary, can be full of meaning, intriguing ideas, and become true poetry.