Will Hardcore Ever Die? Techno's Resurrection of the Breakbeat

Hardcore will never die – we’ve all heard the old adage. Except over the last ten years, hardcore did kind of die. The breakbeat, once supreme champion of dancefloor percussion, just wasn’t cool anymore. Meanwhile all the genres that worshipped at the altar of these chopped funk breaks: drum’n’bass, jungle and hardcore, began to stagnate, left to the die-hards with their perma-gurns as the school of the new millennium turned to grime, garage and dubstep, or indeed back to the worthy institutions of house and techno. The use of breakbeats within hip hop has a long history and continues to bear fruit, but it’s only recently that the percussive style has seen a re-emergence in the dance sphere.

For years the breakbeat scenes haven’t seen much in the way of progress, the last notable exception being DnB’s Autonomic phase spearheaded by the likes of Instra:Mental and dBridge. Yet listen closely and the winds are changing: there has been a sharp increase in the use of breakbeats in modern dance music in 2013, whether they appear as retro ornaments or something altogether newer: conventional drum loops twisted, distorted and recontextualised into fresh shapes. While others have charted the re-emergence of new forms of drum and bass, this article will explore the practitioners who are recontextualising breakbeats at slower tempos, in techno and beyond. 

Paul Woolford - Mindwash

One of the men at the heart of this revival (and the inspiration for this article) is none other than man of the moment Paul Woolford, who is currently attracting all the right attention with the rugged productions of his Special Request moniker. With a name that references (perhaps even mourns) the pirate radio stations that birthed his sound, Woolford’s Special Request tracks are ferocious club monsters, where familiar breaks are squashed into tough technoid forms, glorifying hollow, compressed kicks and elastic breakbeat loops. Yet Woolford’s compositions are not just throwback. On each of his celebrated white label releases (along with an ace recent EP for Houndstooth), he adds a distinct flavour to the gritty soundcraft, keeping it personal and modern. For example, while the superb Mindwash may give way to a tear-streaked breakdown of breathy vocals and eternal synths in pure 90s style, it has at its core the restless pursuit of a maniacally sinuous melodic line which would only be heard this decade.

Pev – Aztec Chant

As most of the music that heavily used breakbeats hovered around the 160bpm mark, some of the more interesting re-appropriations of the beats have come from artists who have slowed them down. Livity Sound head-honcho Pev (formerly Peverelist) is one of the UK scene’s leading lights at the moment, honing an utterly unique style of techno which incorporates various elements of the UK’s hardcore and dubstep lineage. Hear on this year’s Aztec Chant how the breakbeat is just one of the track’s percussive components, nestled amidst panning melodics and frayed hi-hats, looping like a broken record until it finally takes centre stage for the track’s final two minutes. Yet it is not just scene stalwarts who are reclaiming the breakbeat: A Sagittariun, one of the country’s more intriguing new techno producers, constructs a moody scifi soundfield on his stylish Eye Against Eye, only for a slo-mo breakbeat to steal the scene, a perfect fit for the slick Detroit atmospherics.

DJ Haus – Cold As Ice

It’s not just individual producers who are looking to reclaim the hardcore sound: certain labels seem particularly intent on pushing the 90s revival. Chief among them is DJ Haus’ inimitable Unknown To The Unknown, who topped our list of 2012’s best labels. Besides a hilarious Youtube channel and bizzare cover-art, DJ Haus has used UTTU to resurrect some of dance music’s less popular genres, from electro to bassline garage. Proving that these old styles have life in them yet, some of UTTU’s breakbeat experiments have been pure gold: one need only look as far as Haus’ own Cold As Ice for an achingly cool lesson in hardcore, replete with a tacky synth breakdown which I wouldn’t have any other way. Elsewhere on the label, Lords Of Midnite’s excellent Drown In Ur Love EP took the breakbeat on a scifi odyssey for its epic analog title jam.

Andy Stott – Up The Box

We’ve seen a clear renewal of interest in the noble breakbeat, with a variety of artists co-opting those breakneck rhythms to their own ends. Yet outside of the dancefloor exists another group of hardcore operators, dealing with decay and disintegration, resulting in what is perhaps the most fascinating material that the breakbeat has to offer today. These artists can be loosely grouped around the experimental Modern Love and PAN imprints, the former’s Andy Stott being a perfect example. The formidable Up The Box, from his ace 2012 album Luxury Problems, is a semi-experimental piece which loops a locked breakbeat, jamming like machinery in a slowly building gale of static noise. After three minutes it drops away, and after a few atmospheric shifts returns with a phenomenal compressed kick in toe, an exhilarating fusion of jungle and techno that combines the tough distortion of each without even a moment’s relief. It may also be worth noting the possibility of Stott’s involvement in Modern Love’s ultra-limited Unknown / Hate project, a purist exercise in pitch-black junglism which yielded uncompromisingly destructive club tracks.

Demdike Stare - Collision

Further into the world of experimentation one comes across Demdike Stare’s recent Testpressing series, also out on Modern Love. Drawing on a profound knowledge of jungle, hardcore and noise, Collision saw the pair at their rawest yet, building four minutes of seething, heatsick noise around a bed of jammed, dysfunctional breakbeats. While Demdike turned jungle to noise, PAN’s Lee Gamble used his superb Diversions 1994-1996 to draw out the ambience of these tracks, dissolving breakbeats in the faded ambience of musical recall, turning the raves of the 90s into the incoherent, mesmerising sequences which now exist only in our memories. In a fitting parallel, a similar trick was pulled off by Anthony Naples on his remix of Special Request’s Mindwash, casting the legend of hardcore beneath the gauze of memory, eroded by time, subject to dissolution and fragmentation. These experimental re-appropriations of breakbeats treat the drum pattern as an artefact of its own time, and through recontextualising the familiar drum loop they pose questions about evolving musical trends and the unreliable nature of memory itself.

Tessela – Hackney Parrot

Before this article disintegrates, weighed down by the fragility of its pseudo-philosophical musings, it’s worth drawing attention to how current, how big these modern breakbeat iterations can also sound. On the following playlist you’ll hear a selection of some of the sounds discussed above, but also some genuinely innovative use of the classic drumloop – DJ Rashad’s minor masterpiece, the emotive Let It Go, which dissects breakbeats with the finesse of a surgeon, or Clouds’ ode to the rave thump on the monumental Future 1. Yet at the same time we have Dance’s curious Still, a ghostly slo-jam that leaves the breakbeat wholly intact, or Shed’s nuanced second outing as EQD, which ranks among the producers best work to date. Then there’s Tessela’s phenomenal Hackney Parrot, doubtless one of 2013’s most memorable anthems, guaranteed to get the crowd moving even if the dancers don’t know their breakbeat from their steak frites.

The lasting impression of this survey is the extraordinary versatility of this simple set of drum loops, which twenty years on are still being used and abused in the most fascinating, exhilarating fashions. Not only are artists continuing to insert breakbeats into showstopping underground hits, but the passage of time has permitted an artistic re-appraisal, with producers subjecting the drums to the decay of memory and time in a way which opens entirely new avenues of musical possibility. Will hardcore ever die? It’s up to the artists, but on the strength of the scene’s ability to appropriate and re-integrate artefacts of our musical past in ever-more innovative ways, it looks set to survive for a long while yet.

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Playlist

Tracklist:

DJ Rashad – Let It Go

A Sagittariun – Eye Against Eye

EQD – EQD 002B (04)

Clouds – Future 1
Point G - Braka

Special Request – Broken Dreams
Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me

Pangaea – Razz

Unknown / Hate – Human Resources
Deadboy - Nova

Special Request – Mindwash (Anthony Naples Eternal Mix)
Lowout - LAS

Dance – Still
Simoncino - Happy (DJ Sotofett Slow Jungle Trippin')

If you want more, check out Boomkat's ace series of playlists on 14tracks.

DJ Rashad - Double Cup

Label: Hyperdub

One might have assumed that with its breathless pace, demented vocal sampling and rough, DIY nature, the Chicago-born juke sound wouldn’t have the staying power of some of clubland’s more considered genres. Yet since its inception nearly twenty years ago the style has shown no signs of slowing down, and following its arrival on UK shores a few years ago juke has gone from strength to strength. Much of the genre’s appeal lies with the prolific nature of its key practitioners, many of whom ally themselves with Chi-town’s Teklife crew: an outfit who trade ideas and collaborations at breakneck speed, spitting out explosive tracks at a dazzling rate, many of them certified club-weapons.

Footwork’s success can in many ways be accounted for by this community spirit and creative fertility. Yet of all of Teklife’s members, it’s Rashad Harden who has proven most exciting sonically over the past few years. A US transplant now based in London, DJ Rashad’s two EPs for Hyperdub this year have shown a keen interest in genre cross-pollination, and it is this embracing of generic mutations which has placed his productions a cut above the rest, on the likes of jungle-indebted tear-stepper Let It Go or the menacingly abstract I Don’t Give A Fuck.

Album Clips

With Double Cup, DJ Rashad introduces a range of new sonic influences to his malleable footwork mould. Soul is still a major touchstone, from the dreamy bliss of opener Feelin to the breathily sensual Let U No (whose Floetry sample will be only too recognisable to fans of Eats Everything’s anthemic Entrance Song). Yet the softness of these tracks is new: Rashad eschews the jagged edges of footwork’s vocal cuts for a smoother ride, resulting in a more polished, accessible collection of tracks. Yet dancers need not fear: Rashad is still concerned with the ‘floor, and the astounding vocal and percussive acrobatics across the album make for a constantly-shifting tapestry of engaging, foot-spasming sound. The remarkable vocal manipulations in Rashad’s work are particularly striking, from the pitched-down trap references of Drank, Kush, Barz to the manic snips of First Choice-tribute Every Day Of My Life.

These funk-soaked moments are certainly beautifully constructed, but Rashad’s reliance on his Teklife team of collaborators at times feels as if he’s retreading old ground – some of the Spinn collaborations in particular sound like lost cuts from Rashad’s last LP, Teklife Volume 1 . These are still solid tracks, but for the sake of novelty the LP’s less predictable moments consistently prove its best. I Don’t Give A Fuck is as striking now as it was when first released over the summer, its ominous test-tone lead making for one of the album’s most blistering highlights. The only other solo offering from Rashad, Reggie, is another strong outing: a disorientating string sample searing a bed of jittery, ever-shifting percussion. Of all these exciting experimentations Addison Groove collaboration Acid Bit is the strangest cut of the lot, and whether the listener finds the fiery acid lines storming or tracky will depend on individual disposition. Later the LP’s closing collaboration with Earl also offers an interesting diversion, as a fantastically listless vocal sample is run through a blender over simmering chords, insistent synth stabs and frenzied breakbeats. Here it sounds as if Rashad’s thrown as much as he possibly could into a single track, and it’s a credit to his artistic ingenuity that it all works so well.

As with any hour-long collection of club-focused music, particularly one at such a hyperactive pace, Double Cup can be exhausting to listen to all at once. Yet as a survey of the current status of footwork – its soul-indebted past, its hip-hop-inflected present and its uncertain, hybrid future– it’s an invaluable, remarkably coherent statement.

8/10

October Roundup 2013

It always seems to be autumn when the best tunes all start to come out at once. October's yield has been bountiful, and here WN collects the best of the best new releases. Kicking off with our favourite jam of the month, Palms Trax's pitch-perfect Equation, this playlist will take you through blistering euphoria and deeper house meditations, analogue experiments and icy electro, locked-machinery techno and vocal-fed experimental abstraction. It's all here, so why wait? Enjoy!

Tracklist:

Palms Trax - Equation [EP Review]

R-Zone - Rebecca In The Hall [EP Review]

Crystal & S. Koshi - Break The Dawn

Greymatter & KRL - A World Without Love

Doc Daneeka - Walk On In feat. Ratcatcher

Borrowed Identity - Leave Your Life

Raw M.T. - Walkman Is Dead
Marquis Hawkes - Get Yo Ass Off My Grass

SE62 - True Force

Owiny Sigoma Band - Nyiduonge Drums

Lumigraph - Yacht Cruiser

Dopplereffekt - Gene Silencing [EP Review]

Randomer - Bring

Joe - Slope

Objekt - Agnes Demise

Special Request - Soundboy Killer [LP Review]

Tessela - Horizon [EP Review]

DJ Rashad - Every Day Of My Life feat. DJ Phil

Dense & Pika - Colt

Mala - Como Como (Theo Parrish Remix)

Roly Porter - Cloud

And here are a few of our other monthly picks that couldn't be found on Youtube:

Simoncino - Tape I (EP Review) [Second clip]

Alden Tyrell - Somehouse (Single Review) [First Clip]

Tuff Sherm - Followfarming

Til next month, enjoy the tunes!

DJ Rashad - I Don't Give A Fuck

Label: Hyperdub

I Don’t Give A Fuck isn’t just the name of DJ Rashad’s second EP for Hyperdub, it’s a mission statement. We all know what to expect from footwork by now: those frenetic vocal dissections and epileptic snare rolls make for a nauseous trip shot through with soul; the sound has resulted in some of the most forward-thinking dance music of the last few years. Yet after 40 seconds, the release’s title track lets loose a keening high-frequency synth pattern cast over nihilistic vocal snips – ‘I don’t give a fuck about you… I don’t give a fuck about myself’. Gone are the soft pads, the chopped diva vocals; the prevailing mood here is angst, a bleak paranoia closer to London’s distinctive sound than footwork has ever before ventured. Over the course of this EP, Rashad lets loose a series of brusque, masterful sketches that offer a dissection of juke past and future, making for another thrilling statement from the genre’s most electrifying producer.

Footwork landed in the UK a couple of years back thanks to Planet Mu’s Bangs & Works collection, and Hyperdub’s Kode9 quickly caught the bug – not only in his mixes and productions, but also in his choice of signings to the esteemed label. Chicago veteran DJ Rashad’s first Hyperdub offering, the Rollin’ EP, was some of the best juke to see release this side of the pond, showcasing an authentic cross-pollination of styles as footwork left Chi-town and started rubbing shoulders with the likes of jungle, dubstep and garage.

Brief they may be, but each of Rashad’s new offerings leaves a strong impression in its churning wake. After the titular solo effort, a trio of the genre’s finest make for a series of breathless collaborations. First Rashad recruits regular partner DJ Spinn for the exquisitely programmed Brighter Dayz, where a deconstructed vocal is stripped and treated, woven with barbed precision across a field of warm pads and hollow drum rolls. Later Freshmoon helps Rashad spin out the most surprising of vocal samples in a tongue-in-cheek cross-section of jungle breaks and bright synthwork. While the track in question, Everybody, perhaps lacks the seriousness and power of its sibling tunes, the choice of vocal stands as a clear example of the restlessness and sonic adventurousness that makes each of Rashad's releases such a thrilling surprise.

The EP’s final cut, a collaboration with DJ Manny, is perhaps the straightest juke joint of the lot, yet loses nothing for its traditionalism. Here a Mary J Blige vocal is twisted seductively around a remarkably polished field of shifting synth notes, rattling snares and canned drum rolls. While some of Chicago’s juke practitioners have released in the UK before, particular on the Planet Mu imprint, few have taken to the UK’s sonic lineage as gracefully as DJ Rashad. As a result, with each consecutive release one sees a real ambition to expand and explore the genre’s potential in a new context. It appears that after fifteen years of practice, juke is finally ready to leave Chicago.

7/10

June / July Roundup 2013

2013 is shaping up to be the best year for dance music since White Noise began, and this summer has been incredibly exciting, particularly on the album front. To pay credit to the best of the best, here's a selection of our favourite tunes from the last couple of months, all organised in an easy Youtube playlist. The list comprises instant classics and lesser-known works, venturing from big-room bangers to techno rollers, finishing off with a satisfying selection of synthy noodlings. Enjoy!

Tracklist:

Sophie - Bipp [Single Review]

Paul Woolford - Untitled

Ikonika - Beach Mode (Keep It Simple) [Album Review]

Simian Mobile Disco & Bicep - Sacrifice

Todd Terje - Strandbar (Disko Version) [EP Review]

Floorplan - Never Grow Old [Album Review]

Midland - Archive01

Alden Tyrell & Gerd - Luv Thang

Walton - Need To Feel [Album Review]

Special Request - Broken Dreams [EP Review]

Zomby - Memories [Album Review]

Machinedrum - Eyesdontlie

DJ Rashad - I Don't Give A Fuck

Lords of Midnite - Drown In Ur Love

June - Face This (Deep House Mix)

Tuff Sherm - Burglar Loops

The Mole - Lockdown Party (DJ Sprinkles Crossfaderama) [EP Review]

Gerry Read - Crave [EP Review]

Claws For? - Profumo

Octo Octa - Come Closer [Album Review]

Jon Hopkins - Breathe This Air [Album Review]

Boards of Canada - New Seeds [Album Review]

Holden - Renata

Forest Swords - The Weight Of Gold

Fuewa - Blhok [EP Review]

And the one that's not on Youtube:

Guy Andrews - Tapes [EP Review]

March Roundup

Here's White Noise's pick of the month's best tracks. Going from the biggest numbers through house, techno, and then the stranger corners of the dance spectrum, March was great and here are some highlights in our handy Youtube playlist.

Enjoy!

Remember to like White Noise on Facebook or Twitter for a daily dose of fresh tunes.

Tracklist:

Tessela - Hackney Parrot [EP Review]

Headless Ghost - Basik Fire [EP Review]

Breach - Jack [EP Review]

DEVolution - Listen To The Badman

Dusky - Dummy [EP Review]

Dark Sky - Confunktion [EP Review]

Four Tet - For These Times [LP Review]

Mørbeck - Pleasure To Burn

Florian Kupfer - Feelin

Anthony Naples - Busy Signal

Martyn - Oceania [EP Review]

DjRum - Blue On Blue (Voodoo) [LP Review]

Romare - Your Love (You Give Me Fever) [EP Review]

DJ Rashad - Let It Go [EP Review]

Deadboy - Nova [EP Review]

Shlohmo - Later [EP Review]

Bicep & Ejeca - You (Ejeca's Piano Mix)

And the one we couldn't find on Youtube, Divvorce's excellent new EP on up-and-coming NY label Fifth Wall:

DJ Rashad – Rollin EP

Label: Hyperdub

Footwork has come a long way in the last five years. Since its inception as a high-energy style in Chicago which spawned a brilliant dance, the sound took only a few years to sweep the underground by storm. The genre was first brought into the UK limelight with the help of dedicated support from the label Planet Mu, whose Bangs & Works compilation introduced the scene in 2010 to the founding voices of DJ Spinn, RP Boo, DJ Diamond, and a certain key player known as DJ Rashad.

While Planet Mu went on to explore the boundaries of the footwork sound, pushing the new guard of Young Smoke, Traxman and Crissy Murderbot, it also introduced new qualities to the sound, notably the neon juke dystopias conjured by the likes of Ital Tek and Kuedo. Meanwhile Rashad continued on his way, honing and ceaselessly innovating his sound, and last year released one of the genre’s defining titles in the form of Teklife Vol 1: Welcome To The Chi. For his debut release on Kode9’s seminal Hyperdub imprint, Rashad contines to push the sound, here moulding his tunes with a polish and a melancholy edge that fit snugly into the Hyperdub canon. In the process, he has conjured one of the most original, exciting footwork releases of the past year.

Let It Go

All of the genre’s key features are here; the tunes slip past at an uneasy 160bpm, accompanied by cut-n-change vocal samples, nauseous melodic accents cut short and that frantic percussive bed that shifts like quicksand. Opener Rollin is a strong introduction to Rashad’s sound for the uninitiated, stuttered cymbal hiss pans across the speakers before settling into a busy, intoxicating blend of mournful pitched-up vocal snips, frenzied kicks and raw snares. If the title track acts as an introduction, second cut Let It Go is where Rashad really flexes his muscles, producing an EP highlight that startlingly portrays the genre’s untapped emotive potential. This track defines Footwork x Hyperdub; here rich strings tremble under heart-melting diva cries set on a lush backdrop of detailed percussive textures totally unlike the cheap, over-compressed sounds heard at the time of the genre’s birth.

The B-side offers a pair of collaborations with two more of juke’s top dogs, the most impressive being the aggressive rush of DJ Manny collab Drums Please. Here an unstoppable breakbeat onslaught introduces a squealing boogie synthline that gradually softens as the track wears on, offering instant-classic vibes with its spare arrangement and whirring synth loops. DJ Spinn’s contribution on Broken Hearted may follow a more generic template but retains that high-quality sheen, where Spinn’s trademark soulful vocals echo plaintively over exacting snare rolls and sine synth accompaniments. The timing for this release is perfect, as label-head Kode9 has his own footwork-inspired track out soon the future seems bright for juke in the UK, and Rashad performs his role as prophet to a tee, proudly exalting everything unique and impressive about the genre while showing more clearly than ever that there’s so much space left for it to grow.

8.5/10

Read this review in context at Inverted Audio