All posts by Low Entropy

Three examples of how it was to be a Hardcore fan / artist in the 90s and using the Internet when the World Wide Web still seemed a new thing and Facebook and Youtube didn’t exist.

Biophilia

In the 90s, there were not so many ways for artists to connect on the internet. One of these ways were mailing lists; you were added to a list, and then you could send emails to this list, and all other members too, and everyone would get forwarded anyone else’s mails. A quite rudimentary way of communication. One of these lists was the Biophilia list, run by Multipara. Before discogs.com, there were also not so many ways to find a discography of your favorite label online. Multipara catered to that need too. He had a website which listed records on such labels as Fischkopf, Mono Tone, Mille Plateaux… I got into contact with him to ask some questions about Fischkopf and later also supplied information myself, as I was “at the source” in Hamburg where the label was run. Eventually he invited me to the Biophilia list too. This mailing list orignally was intended as a list for people who liked the music of Martin Damm, also known as Speedfreak or Biochip C. and other aliases – hence the name of the list, but it then became more a list for “underground” electronic sounds, including Experimental Hardcore, Early Breakcore and similar outings. Members included Thaddi from the Sonic Subjunkies, Joel from kool.pop / ex-DHR, Andy from Irritant and I think DJ Entox and John from the Somatic Responses, was on there too, as well as many other artists or enthuasists of strange electronic music.
As so many artists were on the list, Multipara got the idea to do a compilation with the very artists of this list, and it happened.
The styles of this release are very varied and definitely show the varying interests of the members of this mailing list; from Chiptune and Ambient to Detroit type Techno to Breakcore and Speedcore everything is here.
My own contribution was the first thing that ever was released by me, Adrenaline Junkie, a 800 BPM Speedcore affair that was 1998 amongst the fastest tracks out there on vinyl.
It was really a special time and community, and this double vinyl was a special result out of it and it makes a nice memory to the mailing list, this rather “primitive” form of internet communicaton.

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Biophilia-Allstars/release/47142

Gabber on EFnet IRC

Another trip down memory lane. In the 90s, there was no Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger. If you wanted to chat online, you would likely use Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. IRC was organized in chatroom channels that ran on servers, that then were connected in huge networks. One of these networks was EFnet, and it had a channel called #gabber, run by DJ Skinner of Black Monolith Recordings. We were a dozen and a half users on there, including Acid Enema, Eye-D from The Outside Agency, Maurice from Rotterdam Terminator Source and lots of others (Satronica, Knifehandchop, Interrupt Vector etc.). It was good times, lots of networking happened, and the beginning of Black Monolith Recordings was laid in that chatroom, and it was also how I got into contact with that label when I sent an early demo of “Urban Uprising” to Skinner – the rest is history. Memories!

C8.com and P2

Third trip down memory lane… we talked about chatrooms and mailing lists… but there was no social media to spread infos and sounds about Hardcore and related music in the 1990s. Instead there were websites and the biggest (for this type of music) was c8.com. It hosted PCP, an early incarnation of Bloody Fist, Somatic Responses and much, much more. The site hosted articles of various fanzines, preview music of plenty of releases, contact and background information and artists and more stuff. It was run by Stevvi who also started a mailing list for artists, fans and everyone else to communicate about what he called “dark, sick music”, and it was. While the list thrived for a few years, it ultimately decayed eventually, with lots of “shitposts” and other stuff, a taster of the Internet culture to come. So he set up a secret mailing list called P2, invite-only and only for the Hardcore elite… just kidding, mostly friends and people who had networked, and people around C8 who could hold a meaningful debate. It was host to many a great conversations, exchange of communication and connecting of artists, also some “scene fights” that almost 20 years later we can laugh about, and even some musical projects such as the c8 99 one (making tracks that last only 99 seconds, I think some of the Somatic Responses ones later got released). Artists on P2 were for example Boris Cavage, Noize Creator, and I think DJ Pure and Christoph Fringeli.
One of the CD-Rs I sent to Stevvi he advertised on P2 (and put it in the music section of c8.com) and this led to the release of my Kougai split with Cdatakill and my Widerstand album, and other stuff.

Nice memories again, of an era when communication was more limited but also more direct and the scene appeared smaller, before today’s version of the Internet.

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Seven Hardcore Tracks That Changed My Life

November 2, 2018 Low Entropy 1 Comment

Some tracks hit you harder than others. They go beyond conventions, challenge boundaries, explore
new sonic terrain. They change your whole perception of music. These are seven tracks I considered
groundbreaking on first listen and after.

Inferno Bros. – Slaves To The Rave

The internet was not nearly as big as it is now in the mid 90s. You couldn’t find easily information about
“Underground Hardcore” on it. So which tracks, which music you knew was mostly defined by CDs or
Records you bought in a record store. And these were mostly defined by the Dutch Gabber market –
ID&T, Mokum, if you’re lucky you’d find a release by Ruffneck or K.N.O.R…. So I didn’t know what I
was in for when I bought a new double-CD by the Raver’s Night series, compiled by Ruffneck Records.
The beginning track was Slaves To The Rave by Inferno Bros. I had heard of PCP before, and listened to
some sounds, but barely knew anything really about this label. This changed with this track. It was just
so different from the standardized “Hardcore” and Gabber. There was so much in it, so many elements,
emotions, it picked you up and took you on its own vibe, so far away… what is not to praise about this
track? The intro, the breakdown, the main synths… a true classic.

Wedlock vs. Comababy – Void Sector

When I listened to this track I was still very much in “Dutch Gabber” territory and didn’t know about
labels like Fischkopf, Blut, Anticore yet. I found this track on an “Earthquake” compilation by ID&T. But
it stood out from the common Gabber arsenal. It had a “Spiral Tribe” sample, cold, industrial drumming,
a futuristic atmosphere… but the main thing for me was the synths that were used in this track.
Something I did not hear before, so otherworldly, so “out there”, like you were walking another planet…
I had to listen to this track on repeat for a lot of times. In my opinion, this track is a kind of “missing
link” between Experimental Hardcore and the more Dance-orientated Dutch Gabber productions.

Atari Teenage Riot – Into The Death

So I broke free from the “Supermarket Gabber” CDs I consumed and finally found a real record store
in the midst of Hamburg – “Container Records”, which was, amongst other things, the home of Fischkopf. One of
the first things I bought was “Harder Than The Rest”, a compilation with Digital Hardcore Records
artists. The tracks were all very nice to me, but when I came to “Into The Death”… I was blown away.
There was so much action packed into this track. Pure aggression. An endless onslaught of screams,
noise and beats. I got goosebumps and once the track was finished I had to listen to it again. To this
day this track is an example for me of how you produce a sound that is crammed with excitement.

Somatic Responses – Umbrella

I knew the music of Somatic Responses from the now defunct c8.com website, the main central of Experimental
Hardcore in the 90s and beyond. I got to know them personally on a mailing list, and we decided to exchange our
demos. So in the cold autumn of 1998 I opened a parcel with a demotape by the Somatix. And once I
put the tape in the player, I was gone. The opening synths of Umbrella… I never heard something like
this before. It changed my outlook at music forever. I know another artist who also listened to this track
described the sound by Somatics as “feeling as if you walk through a dystopic world of burned out
industrial building and cyborg wars”. Couldn’t agree more. This track is still amongst my favorites by the
Somatix. It had a huge influence on my own productions too, and I would suppose on a lot of other artists as well.

Frederik Schikowski – Ring My Bell

This gem was hidden on one of the infamous Irritant tape compilations. A mean, dirty little track.
Unusual for Frederik, it reminds of an Acid-Techno-Electro track, something that could’ve been on Mono
Tone or Force Inc. But the thing for me were the synth sounds, oddly squealing and distorted. The track
just sounded so exotic and different. A mental atmosphere, and a mind trip. A huge influence on my own track “Urban Uprising”.

Disintegrator – In The Sun

This track was actually one of the first Hardcore tracks I heard, as it was on the “Industrial Fucking
Strength” mix CD that I bought in the Gabber section of a chain store. But it wasn’t after 2000 that I
I first listened to the track in full length. It is a masterpiece in dystopic Techno. Wailing choirs like an air
raid warning, a voice muttering “Defcon, Defcon”, sounds like heavy vehicles moving, a killer
bassdrum… what else do you need. A true definition of “Hardcore Techno” and it shows how far ahead
even “older” sound could be. This track set me on a journey to discover the more Techno side of
Hardcore again, after the Breakcore “hype” of the late 90s.

303 Nation – Seis

Oh yeah. This track. A cryogenic nightmare on an outer space colony. Something went wrong but you
can hear the humming of the machines in the distance…
This is a very simple track really, just a drum and a bassline… but so effective in its simple ways.
Words can’t praise this track, and the whole “6 Tracker” release, enough. It’s just so peculiar, so much
there, so special… 303 Nation were true masters of Techno, and this was the high point of their art.

So these were some tracks that made an impact on me, and I hope there are much more to come.

Articles

The Early Days Of The Tracker Hardcore Scene

August 29, 2018 Low Entropy

I want to talk about tracker music, including hardcore. Tracker music was and is done on tracker programs like Soundtracker, Protracker, Fasttracker, Impulse Tracker and countless others.

What people will notice first is the abstract, “top down” view of the sequencer screen, very much unlike the layout of modern DAW programs. Trackers were, to most part, a digital form of producing. The basic sequencing was done by writing the sound to be used (the sample) and the pitch into the sequence editor. All channels were on the same screen (so for example you had to sequence hi-hats and bassdrum and bassline together and could not “add them later”).

These “patterns” were then put into a playing order in another screen. You could add “effects” to each note played such as pitchbent or vibrato, and in later trackers even filtering.

The finished result was saved as modules files, or MODs. These contained both the song and the samples that were used.

In the present day, Tracker technology has improved by a lot; programs like Renoise or Jeskola Buzz added hundreds of new functions and changes in the style and way to produce. Buzz allows you to use a variety of soft-synths written for the program, for example, so you no longer have to rely on sampling.

Before the internet, these modules were spread in the BBS scene. BBS was short for Bulletin Board System and to an internet user it’s hard to explain what exactly they were. A BBS was run on a computer and you could dial it up with your own computer and a modem – around the globe basically – and when you accessed the BBS it offered services like messaging boards, chat (where you could talk to other users that had dialed up the BBS at the same time as you), games, and download sections – were amongst other things track modules could be downloaded or uploaded.

Tracker artists often organized themselves in groups, so called crews. These crews usually were not just composed of musicians, but had also graphic artists, writers, and often programmers – “coders”; they turned the individual tracks into a release of multiple tracks with visuals and menus – kinda like a multimedia LP. Often these releases were stand-alone programs done by the coders which played so called demos while the modules played – graphic animations, often in a virtual reality and cyberspace style, sometimes even short movies, that tested the computing power of your system to its limits.

This is where the tracker scene met the demo scene; demos could be written for existing tracks, or demo coders included tracks for the demos; so sometimes the music came first, sometimes the programming.

The crews had so called couriers that dialed up BBS sytems around the country or world to spread the tracker releases. Often a crew had its own BBS or a BBS was connected to several crews.

With the rise of the internet, the world of BBS systems faded quickly; but the tracker and demo scene moved to the net and survives on it to this day.

With the rise of techno and hardcore, this sound quickly spread to the tracker scene too in the early 90s; long before speedcore really took its hold on vinyl, tracks that exceeded 300 or 400 bpm were released as modules.

Most producers and crews were not “hardcore only” though, and did a variety of techno and electronic styles.

The tracker and demo scene were the root for many techno and hardcore artists in the 90s: Nasenbluten, Neophyte, E-De Cologne, Christoph De Babalon, Amiga Shock Force all started on tracker programs and many many more did so. Hardsequencer, Cybermouse, Bomb 20 and others had releases in the BBS or Amiga scene before their sounds was put to vinyl and CD.

But the vast majority of tracker music never saw the light of day outside its scene; just the couriers and crews and users of the BBS world knew about them. But now there are some archives for this very scene on the internet. It’s a sonic treasure that’s still be to dug up.

Here are three mixes that are showcasing the early tracker hardcore scene:

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10 Records as Building Blocks of the Hamburg Hardcore Scene

October 5, 2017 Low Entropy 3 Comments

These are some of the records that build the hardcore scene in Hamburg as well as created the reputation that Hamburg has as a source for sophisticated hardcore. The tracks that were played at smoke and strobe-filled squat parties and sold at dodgy rave-techno record stores.

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How I Learned to Love Hardcore

September 1, 2017 Low Entropy 1 Comment

How did I get into hardcore? It was 1995, I was 14 and heavily into rave and hard trance. That sound swept through Germany, it was essentially mainstream—much more popular than trance or house is now. Hardcore was a part of it, but unlike the happy rave sounds, it was boycotted by the TV and radio stations (which unlike today were the main source for new sounds.) I asked my rave friends about hardcore, and most said two things: “Good for dancing, not so good for listening” and “Terrordrome is better than Thunderdome”.
Then, one night the following happened. MTV’s Party Zone was on. Some guys I’ve never heard of—Alec Empire and others—were talking about a label I never heard of, Digital Hardcore Recordings. They played the video for Atari Teenage Riot’s “Speed”, which took place inside a squat. I instantly knew that was where I’ve always wanted to be, and the sound I’ve always wanted to hear. There was no return.

A few months later, I got internet, and found out more about this DHR. The DHR webpage mentioned labels like Fischkopf, Napalm, GTI, and Bloody Fist. I was thrilled. Fischkopf was a hardcore label in the city I lived in! How exciting.

I was 15 by this point, and and started to learn more about the gabber side of things. I learned that Mokum was one of the most respected gabber labels around, so I bought Cyberdrome Alien City Part 1, one of their compilations. It introduced me to artists like Wavelan, Speedfreak, and Chosen Few. I knew now hardcore was the thing for me. The next compilation I bought was Thunderdome 12, and then Industrial Fucking Strength. That one really hit me hard. When DJ Skinhead came on, I was legitimately frightened . I had to take the CD out of the player before it was finished!

More compilations followed, and I became lost to hardcore and gabber. I finally picked up something by DHR—Alec Empire’s Destroyer Album. I was surprised how “dark” it sounded compared to the more upbeat Mokum and Ruffneck stuff I listened to. It took me six months before that album really grew on me.

I found out Fischkopf was run out of a techno store in Hamburg called Container Records. I headed there, went up the stairs to the store, and entered paradise! A wall with “hardcore” written on it (next to some fancy skulls) and full of underground hardcore CDs. The full section of hardcore vinyl was categorized by labels, sublabels, and in the case of Fischkopf, even by releases (one folder full of Fischkopf 12, for example). I bought Ec8or’s self-titled album and a Fucking Hardcore 5 CD. The former, again, took a while to grow on me. The first vinyl I bought was Fisch 14, Eradicator’s Agit Prop LP. When I heard the first track on it—with the “everything is war” intro—I fell in love.

So that’s how I got lost in hardcore.

The HARD DATA

All posts by Low Entropy

Seven Hardcore Tracks That Changed My Life

The Early Days Of The Tracker Hardcore Scene

10 Records as Building Blocks of the Hamburg Hardcore Scene

How I Learned to Love Hardcore

Dedicated to the harder sound of electronic dance music.