The Hardcore Overdogs: The Hardcore Years: A speedy look at the Extreme Techno sound of 1994-1999

In the 90s, the new Hardcore Techno scene went through an evolution and development that was quite strong, surreal, twisted, meandering, and ever-changing.
Thoughts, concepts, methods, techniques, were discovered, appropriated, integrated, used, tweaked, torn apart, and then discarded again. Everyone sailed on to a new horizon - and when they arrived, this cycle began anew. multiples times, on and on.
this is another reason why hardcore techno was so varied in this decade, and that there are still so many wind and wonderful, strange and charming releases to be found, out there, often hidden in plain sight.

either way, our mission is once again to throw some light on these happenings;
so we look at each year of most of the second half of the final decade of the twentieth century.
And, as should be obvious, we're digging for the "real releases" here, at times underground, underdog stuff, not just the things that everyone knew and which were available on all the seemingly shiny supermarket-sold compilations.

bon voyage!

1994 and 1995

1994 and 1995 were years in which the Experimental Hardcore scene had just begun to form... true pioneer work. But nevertheless already very strong productions. Breakcore had it's first peak, Acid influenced Hardcore had its impact, some of the first Noise- and Speedcore experiments were visible. PCP was already a veteran in these years but continued its way with powerful productions. Good years for Hardcore and a taster for more to come. Great labels like Fischkopf had their debut releases. Now, to have a time machine again...

Some music examples from this era:

1996

Now for the year 1996. While 1997 might be the year with the most interesting output, 1996 could be the one with the strongest. I had forgotten how many great records were done in this year. Noizecore, Doomcore, Gabber, it's all there. So many labels had their strongest output in this era of time.
Labels like Fischkopf, Napalm, PCP kept pumping out heavy stuff.
The scene was at its first peak.
Plentiful releases nurtured the realms of hard electronic music...

1997

A recent survey showed that amongst the period of the 1990s, a lot of people agreed that 1997 was the best year of Hardcore. Why was this that way? I think one of the main reasons was that it was one of the last years where there was still a coherent single Hardcore scene - people who listened to Digital Hardcore just as Speedcore, Acidcore and Gabber and so on, and these "varied" sounds were still played on one floor or at one party night. Later Hardcore broke up in so many small scenes of its own. But apart of that, 1997 was defined by the many outstanding and classic releases of that year
Were you there in 1997?
Take care!

1. Atari Teenage Riot - Sick To Death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJOotJwCs1Y
2. Patric C - You Made It Perfect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8UY-xT6HO4
3. Reign - Hall (Huge Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De4sHmNO3eU
4. DJ Freak - Test Plate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTnRE-pfdOI
5. Current 909 - Golden Dawn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIpvd7XQEmc
6. S37 - Offspring Of The Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aye2wM2wQTQ
7. Somatic Responses - Sickwave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsE6dhZ0vmo
8. Base Force One - We Know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7lJRiAGrwI
9. Superpower - Innocent Minds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD5n2OlbYhQ
10. Trash Enemy HQ - Pestilence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFIyaK6Cu_I

1998
For me, 1998 was the last year of the first decade of Hardcore in which there was an over-abundance of great records and tracks. The sound had gotten more fierce, distorted and harder on the one side, and more experimental on the other. The Breakcore scene was forming and evolving into its own way apart from the rest of the "Hardcore" cohesion, Proto-Frenchcore was made, and an onslaught of Industrial influences broke through.
What followed were for me meagre years - until Hardcore got on its track again and there was once again a flow of great releases - just my two cents, as I know a lot of people enjoyed the period "in between" that followed.

1. The Overlord - Countdown 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBhyeOsnj68
2. Choose - Tight Slip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgQj3Y59fi8

1999

1999 was the last really strong (at least half) year for the first wave of Hardcore for me. Before the sober years commenced. The output was more scarce than in 1998 or 1997, but there were still some powerful releases. The genre fragmentation started to develop, Hardcore was not a "whole dish of soup" anymore. Especially Breakcore spread its wings. The first wave of Speedcore slowly died out to be eclipsed in speed and harshness by other producers in the years that followed. PCP was dead but Acardipane Records had competent releases in its place. This was the end of the decade - the end of the millenium - and it showed in the releases of that year.

This concludes our little 90s retrospective.

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Thursday, July 11, 2024

The Hardcore Years: A speedy look at the Extreme Techno sound of 1994-1999

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