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.

Special Request - Soul Music

Label: Houndstooth

Under his own name, Paul Woolford has proven himself a gifted producer working in the techno mould. From 2006’s pitch-black Erotic Discourse to this year’s summer anthem Untitled by way of mutant Psychatron collaboration Stolen, Woolford is responsible for an enviable catalogue of rugged club hits. Yet it was when he first donned his pirate radio-homage moniker Special Request that Woolford’s music really came into a league of its own. Prefiguring the current hardcore revival, the Special Request canon harked back to the raucous 90s UK scene that birthed hardcore and jungle, setting these familiar sounds – ricocheting breakbeats, undulating bass sweeps – into crushed technoid moulds. As much a work of tribute as of innovation, the success of early Special Request tracks (here included in a second bonus disc) was due to Woolford’s eminent ability to channel the period’s reckless abandon, curating a thrilling confluence between past and present sounds which made for some of the last few years’ most essential listening.

Now Woolford introduces his most complete Special Request statement to date in the form of the sublime Soul Music, an album whose title hints at Woolford’s emotional relationship to this music. A dedication to the unsung heroes of pirate radio, this music harks back to a sound which was the foundation of almost all contemporary UK dance, giving birth to the energy, dread, and south London atmospherics that can be heard today in garage, dubstep and grime. Despite its wild pace, Soul Music is evidently a labour of love, as Woolford works within a rough style, referencing illicit radio by arming himself with backspins and MC shoutouts, and even going so far as to sample his own sounds as heard through an FM transmitter. It works brilliantly: a complete statement which at once elegises, lionises, and ultimately reinvigorates the hardcore sound Woolford loves so much.

 

Album Clips

For those looking for the savage hybrids that cemented early Special Request classics such as Lolita (Warehouse Mix) and Mindwash, Soul Music will not disappoint. Soundboy Killer opens with a tongue-in-cheek MC interruption, ‘can you please clear the stage, all you’re doing is jumping the records and we can’t have a good time’, which opens into an explosive hybrid of gender-shifted vocals, gunshots and staggered breakbeat cuts. Throughout, Woolford’s club numbers are bursting with ideas and energy: while Body Armour offers the patient swagger of jackhammer bass hits and cocked pistols, Black Ops seethes over tunnelling filtered synthwork and epileptic break-science.

Yet on one level, we already knew that Woolford could reconfigure these hardcore sounds with the requisite power and grit. As a result some of Soul Music’s most interesting pieces are where he departs from the full-throttle momentum of those earlier releases. Opener Forbidden is a sterling example, as those same breakbeats and growling bass burrow deeper into the mix, adorned by shimmering harp notes and atmosphere to spare. Follow-up Undead is just as intriguing, where it sounds like Untitled’s catchy piano refrain got lost in Special Request’s parallel universe, a treasure whose light filters up from the deep.

While it may have more in common with some of the pacier numbers, third cut Cold Blooded is equally intriguing: like Hessle Audio gone hardcore, its off-kilter beat pattern and insistent melodics make for a powerful trip where Woolford flaunts his sonic inventiveness. This stylistic restlessness is a joy, and evident throughout the album: Capsules filters into existence through deconstruction, as if someone was tuning a radio (achieved with some remarkable panning), while final cut Descent is a curveball of detuned piano notes driven to madness, cannibalised by washes of flickering static.

The album is accompanied by a disc of previous Special Request releases and remixes, and as a result Woolford’s dedication to his hardcore sound palette may fatigue the listener after almost two and a half hours. Yet the quality of these compositions cannot be disputed. It’s a stunningly consistent package, and also a joy to finally get digital versions of the likes of Woolford’s Hackney Parrot VIP or his ace Lana Del Ray remix Ride, among the many gems nestled on the second disc. Soul Music may be composed of songs that aim for the jugular and don’t let go, but the reverence for the source material means that a genuine emotional core glows beneath the brain-frying percussive acrobatics. It’s an astonishing accomplishment, and if this is a window into Woolford’s soul, we might only hope that he continues to bare it well into the future.

9/10
Read this review in context at Inverted Audio

Summer Sessions: House

To close out the summer, we have two bumper house playlists, full of instant classics and soulful melodies. The house session comes in two flavours: the peak playlist deals in shiny, fist-pumping bangers, while the deep playlist is dustier, more analog, packed with after-hours sounds from some of the scene's top producers. The deep playlist is a more typical White Noise list, but we aim to please, and there are countless scorchers on each list to keep the sun shining out of your speakers well into the colder months.

Make sure to check out all of our summer playlist series, and to follow White Noise on Facebook and Twitter!

Summer Sessions:

Classic House

Hip Hop
Chill

Bass
Funk and Soul

Peak House Playlist

Tracklist:

Krystal Klear - From The Start

First Choice - Love Thang (Genius of Time Re-edit)

DJ T. - City Life (Maceo Plex Remix)

Scuba - Everywhere

Sophie - Nothing More To Say (Dub)

C.R.S.T - Monster Munch

FCL - Let's Go

Capracara - Ronin

Bicep - Vison of Love

Classixx - Into the Valley (Julio Bashmore Remix)

NY Stomp - The NY House Trak

Paul Woolford - Untitled

Medlar - Can't Stop

Floorplan - Never Grow Old

Kyodai - Breaking

Lone - Airglow Fires

Simian Mobile Disco & Bicep - Sacrifice

Todd Terje - Strandbar (Disko Version)

Teengirl Fantasy - Cheaters (John Talabot's Classic Vocal Refix)

Crazy P - Heartbreaker

Deep House Playlist

Tracklist:

Floating Points - Love Me Like This (Nonsense Dub)

HNNY - For The Very First Time (Dirtytwo's Midas Touch Remix)

Nicholas - Things Of The Past (NY Club Mix)

Anthony Naples - Mad Disrespect

The Phantom - Vogue Dub

Chesus - Special

Damiano von Erckert & Funkycan - Symphonie of a Brother

Wbeeza - Billy Green Is Ded

KMFH - Down!

Session Victim - Good Intentions

October - String Theory

Andres - Jack City

Motor City Drum Ensemble - Raw Cuts #6

Last Magpie - (Who Knows) Where Love Goes

Nitetime - Teddy's Jam

Trevor Deep Jr - Keep On!

Omar S - The Shit Baby

Wil Maddams - Stand In For Love

Mosca - The Way We Were

Space Dimension Controller - The Love Quadrant

Tito Wun - The Way U Do It

Theo Parrish - Solitary Flight

Paul Woolford - Untitled / Overload

Label: Hotflush

After ruling the roost for the last four years or so, Scuba’s Hotflush imprint has gone rather quiet of late. The label, once known for its on-point dubstep hybrids and later for ushering in the current era of UK house, hasn’t managed to clock any particularly memorable releases in 2013. Leave it to man of the moment Paul Woolford to change this. Alongside an early classic (and another on Hotflush itself), Woolford has been wowing dancers up and down the country recently under his Special Request guise, squashing hardcore and jungle tropes into rugged, techno rollers which set fire to the ‘floor. 

Untitled

For his welcome return to Hotflush, Woolford comes up with his most bipolar release to date: a hook-laden, sunkissed summer anthem that’s already doing the rounds in Ibiza paired with a Special Request-style foray into darkness and compression. Despite the incongruity of these two tracks, Woolford is a man who knows what he’s doing and knocks it out of the park on both counts. It’s easy to see how A-side Untitled has become a crossover success into Ibiza’s ‘dance mainstream’; with piano stabs and an earworm vocal that won’t quit your head for days. Yet unlike the majority of the trending ‘deep house’ schlock, this is a substantial piece on the level of production values: the beat pattern kicks and swings with real heft and just a hint of Woolford’s trademark distortion, buoyed up by thundering bass bounces that'd entice even a geriatric to the dancefloor.

Overload

The blissful A-side’s evil twin shows up in the form of Overload, where chopped vocals sputter out over dissected breaks in a taut technoid soundscape. While Untitled’s anthemic potential should be clear to all; the B-side is sure to be the weapon of choice for the UK’s nocturnal denizens, and could easily be considered as another fine addition to the Special Request catalogue. Woolford’s consummate ability to change faces so dramatically and succeed so thoroughly has to be heard to be believed, making for Hotflush’s most essential release in over a year.

8/10

Special Request - Hardcore

Label: Houndstooth

After the astounding success of his viciously compelling 2006 single Erotic Discourse, Paul Woolford somewhat disappeared from view. While the producer continued to work, notably issuing 2011’s excellent Stolen collaboration with Psychatron, it wasn’t until Woolford donned his Special Request guise last year that the world really started paying attention. Across a series of four self-released, vinyl-only singles, Special Request evoked the crushed, blistering power of the warehouse rave through a modernisation of classic jungle and DnB templates. With standout tracks Lolita and Mindwash, Woolford has decimated many of the UK’s discerning dancefloors over the last year, and now for the first time he turns to the rising star of Fabric-affiliated label Houndstooth to issue his fullest Special Request excursion to date.

Woolford offers two original cuts here, opening the EP with the hefty stomp of Wall To Wall. All the Special Request trademarks are here: the sunken kick compressed to within an inch of its life alongside a stark, brutal percussive field, all mixed with a healthy dose of distortion. The clipped, syncopated vocal cuts and swandiving bass hits towards the close cap off a tune of powerfully destructive proportions, yet the track is still somehow outshone by Woolford’s other offering, the nasty pirate-radio homage of Broken Dreams. Here rebounding bass notes underpin a mutating array of surgical break cuts, resulting in a tune that conjures the breathless energy of the UK’s hardcore continuum at its best without ever sounding like pastiche. The energy just lets up once, as the rhythm is interrupted by a blissed-out breather of a female vocal, serving to prepare the listener and the ‘floor for another three minutes of mayhem.

So far, this is what we’ve come to expect from Special Request; a pair of formidable excursions into breakbeat science, even if this is indeed an uncommonly fine pair. Yet this is where Houndstooth’s expert guiding voice makes itself heard, as the two original cuts are backed by a superb pair of remixes every bit as fascinating as Woolford’s original pieces. Firstly Brooklyn house youngster Anthony Naples takes on Mindwash in his ‘Eternal Mix’, an appropriately titled rework that looks at hardcore through a thick gauze of nostalgia and deterioration, sapping the strength of Woolford’s breaks and layering mournful pads and vocal clips over the top. It’s a brilliant idea, and more than anything proves Naples’ capabilities outside of the house mould, but one can’t help but feel that the track is over far too soon, disappointingly fading out after only three minutes.

The second choice of remixer is just as inspired, as Houndstooth invites jungle distortionist Lee Gamble to take on the unreleased Capsules. This beautifully patient rework builds a detailed field of ambience, both glossy and desiccated, rounding off a powerhouse EP on a sublimely atmospheric, introspective note. Woolford seems unstoppable at the moment, as his junglist tendencies rule the underground while his latest Hotflush release Untitled is set to take over Ibiza. What Houndstooth have drawn from him is another stellar addition to the Special Request canon and an exceptional pair of remixes, a package that rejoices in the power of real ‘ardcore while simultaneously mourning its loss.

8/10