The 90s Hardcore Techno scene remains largely unknown and invisible

There is growing interest in the 90s Hardcore Techno scene - but information and insight is still lacking.
The focus is usually on a few assumed "major players" of the 90s hardcore world - a small number of artists, labels, organizations.
The music, "facts", and history of these is repeated over and over again by the (social) media - and the rest ignored.

We'd like to address some of the "core" issues here:

Rude Boy - Are You Down (With The Underground?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9n75NAJQQ

1. People fail to realize how *vast* the 90s hardcore techno scene was.
There were literally hundreds (or thousands?) of artists, labels, crews, party series - not just the 'select few' that everyone knows now.
A large part of this massive amount of tracks, releases, *music* still remains unknown & invisible.
A huge secret treasure of sounds that direly desires to be discovered.

2. People assume there was some kind of hierarchy (of popularity) - such as: "everyone loved the big gabber sound, styles like "speedcore" or extreme hardcore were more marginal, and stuff like Fischkopf or Anticore was then some obscure fringe stuff for the uttermost die-hards."

Society of Unknowns - Live @ the Invisible College

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtqPayM13z4

Instead, and in truth, the scene was more like a matrix of networked islands, a structural palimpsest, fragmented, chaotic, anarchic.
A lot of sub-scenes and sub-groups were heavily involved in "doing their thing" and could not care less about the rest; or at least they were centered on their own little mission.

For example, for the fisch-heads, the fischkopf releases were not some obscure vinyl they collected "on the side"; the label, the artists, the sounds, the parties, the transmission and everything connected to fischkopf were everything to them, and a huge part of their daily lives.

E-Man - Entering The Unknown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbQdT8ijdjI

3. Paper fanzines were the backbone of the scene, and often the only way to get information about new releases, upcoming parties, and more, in the pre-internet days. There were several dozen of them, all around the world, but again, this part of the story has been largely forgotten.

4. In contemporary times, there is a serious lack of focus on queer, lgbtqia+, female, migrant, "non-white", disabled, or otherwise diverse artists and players of 90s hardcore. Often giving the impression that hardcore was only a "straight white male" thing - which it was not.

Wedlock vs Comababy - Void Sector

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9DUaG0Sgu0

5. The political aspects of the 90s underground get almost completely ignored. A picture is painted as if hardcore heads were a bunch of drugged folk, looking merely for fun and entertainment delivered by distorted drums, within consumer capitalist culture and society.
When in fact a lot of anarchistic, communist, left-radical, anti-patriarchy, anti-authority activism happened in relation to hardcore techno. With the desire to spread political ideas being the raison d'être for most artists to pick up producing in the first place.

And even those who did not carry a book by Bakunin or Stirner in their backpacks as they train-traveled to the next big hardcore rave usually hated "the system" with all their hearts.

Rage Reset - Unknown Structure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aeUjx1n3Qo

Part 2

So, why is there such a lack of insight?
Well, looking back from today, the 90s hardcore scene *really* is very obstructed, opaque, and obtuse. It's hard to find information about releases, labels, and so on. If you were not there, back in the day, you will have a hard time "getting through". It's almost impossible!

Our magazine tries to change this and to provide information. Others are similarly involved. And we hope that a whole lot more people get involved and take on this task.

But regardless. There is much more to 90s hardcore techno than appears on the surface.
There are still countless of releases, producers, groups, information, secrets, marvels, waiting to be dug up and discovered!

Burning Lazy Persons - If The Truth Be Known

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVMLUVDRld4