The enduring legacy of the c8.com messageboard - or how a 90s internet website changed the course of electronic music

Some stories are just too weird, too out there, to believe them.
For example, would you believe this one?
There was a messageboard and website, coming into existence by the mid-90s, that focused on electronic music and underground / sub-culture.
And that became super influential to the evolution of extreme electronic genres like hardcore techno, breakcore, speedcore...
That accumulated almost all alumni of these early scenes... or inspired & enlightened the "underground stars" to come?

But let's wind back and talk all about it.
What was c8.com, or Circuit 8 ?

It was a website set up on the "90s internet", run out of UK (rumor is that the admin was a 'stockbroker-turned-underground-figure').
Apart from its own content, it also became a host to other labels and artists - and some of the truly "big ones" in darker electronic music history.
The official Planet Core Productions web presence by Marc Acardipane and the other rascals was on there (another rumor is that the payment for this good deed was - free choice in any of the 200+ vinyls that PCP released in 7 years).
Nasenbluten and Bloody Fist were on there - the "aussie hc elite".
Somatic Responses had their first web presence there.
Low Entropy, too. Praxis Records, Widerstand, The Skreem magazine, Ambush Records, too many to mention!

Intermission:
The term "Circuit 8" is actually a throwback to the hippie days of free love, substance, and rock'n'roll.
"Circuit 8" is a concept conceived by lysergic guru Timothy Leary. The highest state in his list of "mind's circuits", that can only be accessed by near death experiences, deity interventions, "extremely high doses of acid", and, I would assume, by raving to hardcore beats at 6 minutes after midnight.

End of intermission.

C8 was also a test field for the newest internet tech (as in, really fancy stuff for the 90s).
So music streaming and downloads were already established a few decades before our present commercial streaming services...

As such, the electronic music youth flocked to the website. No matter if you lived in south africa, india, berlin, post-soviet moscow, south america... you were now in tune with the newest stuff in the electronic noise sector.

the catchphrase of the page was "dark, sick music" and i guess that phrase checks out!

Eventually, a "mailing list" was set up, which was a bit like a message board. Just that it was used via e-mail.

A crowd began to rise on the c8 mailing list, and when the "noise to signal" ratio began to teether in the wrong direction, a new, secret group was set up within c8.

This second layer, "secret community", unknown to the regular c8 users, was instrumental in setting up and coordinating a lot of quite spiffy projects or record releases.
i won't name the names of the people that were part of this, because I think it's better if some things stay secret.

Fast forward a few years, and eventually a "true" message board is set up, that became a community, to another iteration of the "scene".

It is very weird that almost all of this has been almost completely forgotten, except to the ones directly involved.
I mean, a project, that was important to "prime movers" in electronic music, like Planet Core Productions, Nasenbluten, Somatic Responses... should be mentioned somewhere, in the history books?
But no, it seems that the world had decided... to keep quiet on this one.

Apart from the "direct intervention" through c8, a lot of then-upcoming artists were influenced by the site & the board. and especially the crowds of the breakcore scene.

At least in this sense, the c8.com web page lives on... and hey, maybe we will finally reach "Circuit 8 consciousness" one day!

(Short) list of nice tracks related to c8:

Miro - Purple Moon (was online at the website, months ahead of the release.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMKbCf8gXmk
The Kotzaak Klan - Powerstation Kotzaak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL2QSU7pv24
Base Force One - Welcome to Violence (early breakcore track) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcvVazgDxm0
Society of Unknowns - Dead by Dawn (The endless mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE2pjiQQsXQ
Somatic Responses - Sickwave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsE6dhZ0vmo

Free free to check out this archived website for some fresh memories: https://darksickmusic.com/c8/archive/

2nd Note: There is a petition going on that aims to bring back the c8.com spirit in some way. Feel free to take a look at it here: https://nc.skillz.biz/apps/forms/s/rf99KpxC4gxaNA6bz3oCEApT