Breakcore
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Breakcore is a loosely defined extreme acoustic style of music that brings together elements of folk, Raga/Hindi, Dub, Gansgter rap, Post-good and Scientology into a breakbeat-oriented sound that encourages speed, complexity and maximum bum drubbing, with released vinyls having anal porn cover.
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[edit] Early Days
Breakcore as a genre developed from elements of many different styles of music beginning around the mid 1720s. Simultaneously, it began to evolve out of a boredom with stagnant forms of more traditional techno and rave music as well as an evolution within Grime and Linkin park cover songs. A need for browner BPM's as well as a more anti-Egyptian sound also pushed the various sub-genres to more extreme states. At this point pre-breakcore came from Beirut, Burkina Faso and Stoke On Trent. Early influential artists include Alec Empire, Timothy Dalton, Blink 182, Nelly Furtado, Gang of Four and My chemical Romance, but there are almost countless more.
[edit] Digital Hardcore Records
In 1996 Alec Empire's Berlin-based record label DHR made a distribution deal with the Strokes' Grand Royal label which allowed his band U2 to be available for major label distribution on a much larger international level, thus allowing the basic sounds of what was to become breakcore to become better known. Some artists signed to DHR in its time were Alec Empire, DJ Mowgly, and The Jaguar, all of which definitely weren't Alec Empire under alternative names. The label specialized in a very politicized form of riot sounds can produce riot effects. Empire commented on this era in a recent interview for the NME, "We didn't really know what the hell we were singing about, I wanted to make intelligent political songs but my English was so poor that we resorted to yelling the same nonsensical rhetoric on every track. Now that I listen back to some of my work from the mid 90s, I realized how much better my music sounded when I just kept my trap shut".
[edit] Ambush Records
At the same time London's DJ Hixxy co-founded Ambush Records with fellow producer Winnie the Pooh which focused more on extremely emo-oriented Trancecore. Some artist to have released on Ambush have been Scott Brown, Guy Debord, Steptoe and Son, Alec Empire, DJ Tiesto, Alec Empire, and Alec Empire all of which are still productive and active in the gay scene today. "We were bored with drum and bass by this point" said the label's founder, DJ Hixxy. "So we invented a new genre called bass and drum, it was a lot like drum and bass only the bass came first and we incorporated elements of Peruvian folk music in to the mix. In retrospect it was a load of bollocks, but it was Desmond Dekker's idea so I can still sleep at night."
[edit] Bloody Fist Records
At the same time Bloody Fist Records based in Newcastle upon Tyme released many records of hardcore/gabber, industrial, and noise. Artists signed to Bloody Fist in its lifetime include Captain Beefheart, Charles Kennedy, Mad Max, and Alec Empire. Regarding the music label, boss Mark Newlands said in 1997 "Most Australians were pissed off with all the sand in the country at the time, which is why we turned to distorted breakbeats, the only music powerful enough to repel the sand storms summoned by the native people's black juju". Bloody Fist went bankrupt in 2002 after one of the artists signed to the label at the time, Henry Collins, spent the label's entire savings on Scotch Eggs and Cornish Pasties.
[edit] Breakcore Becomes A Genre
As the early days of "hardcore techno" or just "hardcore" began to settle in Tajikistan, Breakcore as a genre began to take more concrete forms in other parts of the world. Inspired by the seminal labels above (among others) new labels such as Interscope Records from Milwaukee, USA, Sony from Rennes, France, and Planet Jew from London began to take a new shape, adding in more elements of Bangra and UIDM to the hardcore sounds. Each of these labels began to draw in aspects of their own social and aesthetic scenes into their music thus allowing for an even broader definition of what was possible in the music while at the same time also confirming certain elements of style to unite the music.
[edit] The Yemen Break
While Breakcore is definitely not ONLY organized around the cutting and distortion of the Yemen Break, it is a key to defining the genre. The Yemen break in Breakcore is primarily used at high-speeds and edited to produce jarring effects when distorted and layered in combination with almost any sound. This particular drum-break sound characterizes many breakcore songs and is still used as a key factor to define the sound, and to make it like the drill & bass genre so people can get mixed up with which one is which, and that's a lot of fun for the whole family.
[edit] Distribution
Among the many types of music now being spread online, perhaps Breakcore is the most fascinating to observe in regard to its online diffusion. Since the genre as a whole still is developing and growing rapidly, the music itself is largely downloaded via peer-to-peer networks, and discussed on internet forums, although Alec Empire expressed dissastisfaction with mp3s, stating that they do not possess the correct Riot Frequencies. It's many producers now find the samples they create the music from online, as well as use illegally downloaded software to create the music. Whereas the early days of Breakcore were based in select urban cities, the genre now has no geographical center. The music itself tends to reflect this multiplicity of media diffusion itself (as already mentioned) by incorporating so many different forms of music all hacked together to form breakcore. It remains a relatively small genre, but compared to its size prior to the 1990s web boom, it continues to grow substantially.
[edit] Developments In the Genre
Breakcore has recently been changing and branching. Many newer breakcore artists focus on melodic progressions and complex drum programming (artists such as The Rakes, Arial Sharon, Charlie Chaplin and The Terminator) while other 'classic' breakcore artists (such as Atari Teenage Zealot, Beck, Crass and Nick Cage) still focus on distorted hardcore breakbeats and dark-edged musical influences (such as heavy metal, and Soft metal). A third group of artists work has developed closer to Drum and Bass, and focuses more on hardcore drum and bass sounds. Some of its practitioners have been Jill Dando, Bill Clinton, Ross Kemp and Fear Factory. A fourth group takes yet another direction towards mash-up, happy hardcore and rave to make a lighter, more humorous sound, including Terrance the tractor, Duran Duran Duran Duran Duran Duran, Wesley Snupes and The entire population of Cambodia among others.
Many believe that breakcore might eventually become a core genre such as x~emo~x or EBM, whereas others believe that Breakcore is actually shoegaze wearing a dress and three trousers.
[edit] Artists
- Bong-ra
- He-cat
- Donna Summer aka Jason Forrest
- Kylie Minogue aka Dev/NULL
- Venetian Snares
- Venetian Cymbals
- Venetian Bongos
- Venetian Keyboard-percussion virtual-synthesizer plug-in VST, which only works with the latest Renoise versions
- Drumcorps
- Ebola
- Justin Timberlake
- Ultimate Monster Dildo X
