#hardcore continuum

[bretterbodendisko]

We celebrate house music and techno and it's numerous offsprings. This is working class music!

[thewaysoundtravels]

(via The Wire 300: Simon Reynolds on the Hardcore Continuum: Introduction - The Wire)

“Simon Reynolds introduces a series of seven essays on his idea of a Hardcore Continuum. The essays all originally appeared in past issues of The Wire”.

[thoughtsaboutlife23]

זה היה בלתי צפוי

6/8/21

car culture - Featherweight

gruff rhys - Distant Snowy Peaks

annie – miracle mile

clock class - Dead A Sleep

ישי קיצ'לס – המצב אינו מזהיר

sons of kemet – pick your burning cross

king gizzard and the lizard wizard - Catching Smoke

סוס מביט - חיסין

thirdface – local

אלי לס – לך דע

עטר מיינר – מדינה של גנבים

חנה וחסיבה – חמור

overmono – pieces of 8

אלי לס - חייך...אכלת אותה

[scuffeddeejays]

In exclusive excerpts from his forthcoming book, Joe Muggs maps the multiple continuua of bassline-driven music that has reverberated through British life for half a century.

The photographer Brian Stevens and I have worked together for a long time getting to this simplicity. We first made a vague attempt to map out underground culture through interviews and portraits a full decade ago, with my VeryVeryMuch website. “Underground culture” is a helluva catch-all, though, and after putting up a few interviews we found ourselves unfocused and overcomplicated. Also, I forgot to renew the domain name.

Meanwhile I had found myself wrestling with the “hardcore continuum” as coined by Simon Reynolds. It’s a fantastic, and extremely useful, term for – roughly speaking – London pirate/rave music of the 1990s and 2000s. But some of its more zealous guardians became obsessed with putting hard boundaries about it, making it proprietary and rigid. In debating with them, and with Reynolds, I started falling for the idea of multiple continuua: porous, fluid, readily-combinable structures within culture.

[scuffeddeejays]

The Hardcore Continuum

If you haven’t heard of music journalist Simon Reynolds’ concept of the Hardcore Continuum please click HERE to read about it first.

If you’ve now read that or you knew about it anyway hopefully you might find a recent online conversation I had with various people about the current state of said Hardcore Continuum interesting:

Them: Everyone’s got a grasp on why the hardcore continuum pegged it

Scuffed Deejays: Do they? What is it?

For me it’s currently: Acid House > Hardcore > Jungle > UK Garage > Grime > Dubstep > Bassline / UK Funky > Jackin’ > Deep Tech

Deep Tech is basically Acid House reimagined so we’ve come full circle if that is what you mean by pegged it?

Them: [Deep Tech is not basically Acid House reimagined], and it isn’t even bleep n bass reimagined either. it’s shite tech house, just4u london version.

Acid has always been around in the techno scene.

Scuffed Deejays: It’s definitely not shite tech house. The following Jack n Danny set from a few months ago proves this:

Jack n Danny 3am-4am @ Audiowhore

I’ve listened to the above about 40 times since discovering it.

My current new favourite is the following from last month:

Lee Edwards 4am-5am @ House of Silk

Edwards very much has his own distinct sound compared to other DJs on the same night.

I don’t know anything about Techno so will take your word for it that Acid House has always been around there. It’s its reemergence in the continuum which is interesting to me though. House music split off from Acid House and Hardcore back in the day and has always run kind of parallel but in opposition to the continuum up till Deep Tech.

Them: My dude, this sounds exactly like hot creations/get physical tech house given a UK twist, and thats only slightly. this stuff is all over rinse. It’s so static.

Didn’t the main players in this scene, like Radford, decamp to soulful house after garage turned to grime? thats where the overly fundamentalist applications of the nuum breaks down anyway.

This is the kinda stuff i am more down with but even then there’s a certain cleanliness of sound. 

Scuffed Deejays: I remember those Strange Static shows. For me they are more like UK Bass or almost Bassline than Deep Tech. Deep Tech for me is less jump up and more turned towards the trad House scene from which Radford was cherry picking the darker stuff to highlight a new direction. Therefore back in 2014 I was sort of in opposition to what they were doing but secretly I was listening to those shows and really enjoying them. In 2018 that Strange Static sound, or a more jump up and hardcorey version of Deep Tech, is more interesting than it was back then when they were perhaps a bit too ahead of their time.

-

Following the above exchange somebody started a new conversation about how the Hardcore Continuum ended effectively when the internet came into being.

-

Scuffed Deejays: The hardcore continuum didn’t go quiet with the introduction of the internet! After Acid House became Hardcore it didn’t lose any of its what the fuckness. Hardcore exacerbated it. Jungle was a different side but still as free. Maybe as time has progressed some of the shock of the sound of electronic beats has diminished as we’ve become more used to them. You can probably pinpoint this to the point when indie guitar bands completely went off the radar and hip hop and EDM took over the mainstream completely. Grime is like the generation xennial of the hardcore continuum in that it is straddled both not being internet based and vice versa. Post Grime every new music genre has had the internet to support and spread it. Far more effective in terms of numbers than pirate radio. Now every white middle class person knows about Bass House, Drum n Bass etc instead of isolated London boroughs but that hasn’t had a negative effect. The idolising of driving into London and tuning in to the pirates is all well and good and I know this experience but it doesn’t compare to the same buzz now being available to anyone with an internet connection. It’s just taken a different form in terms of signal carrier. The physical scenes still exist in clubs and festivals. Record shops moved online and so did their clientele. The discussions that took place in those places now happen on forums etc. Today’s hardcore continuum is far more expansive. 

Where does the hardcore continuum head next?

So we’ve reached Deep Tech, or we did in about 2013, so what happens or has happened next? I think last time I wrote about this I said that we had gone full circle and were basically back at Acid House again with Deep Tech. Since this statement I’ve done a bit of research and discovered that this may not be entirely the case. Deep Tech seems to be moving slowly towards a harder more hardcore vibe in some areas with DJs like Jack n Danny and Aaron Vybe and Perch MC (who have handily just released a new mix which is well worth a listen):

Aaron Vybe & Perch MC - Devastation Mix

Having said that, I still hear less hardcorey and more stripped down sets from Deep Tech DJs like Majesty and Lee Edwards that are also interesting in the paths they are exploring. More trad house but still with that darker hardcore edge in there. Perhaps where Majesty and Lee Edwards might fail is perhaps an over reliance on darkness. Jack n Danny and Aaron Vybe are not quite as dark and therefore more appealing I think.

Another development seems to be the Bassline / Bass House area which from a few bits I’ve read and listened to say it started getting interesting again around 2015 (please correct me if I’m wrong on the date). Bassline appears to have gotten slower bpm wise while still sounding roughly the same albeit with a bit more Skrillex / maximalism thrown in. It sounds a bit more professional now and not quite so underground and this seems to be reflected in the videos of raves where this is being played and that I’ve been to. Girls are into it for one thing and not just working class girls (which seems to be more true of girls at Deep Tech events - again correct me if I’m wrong - but also middle class white girls. Importantly the music is really good if you ignore some of the more soulless EDM bits. It’s like Bassline has looked at EDM and its success and gone ‘we can do that but actually make the music good at the same time’. What you are also seeing in the Bassline scene is a merging of Bass House and other similarly named sub genres circling around the same sweet spot. Jamie Duggan mentions it in THIS recent interview:

In your capacity as a DJ, you are one of the originators of bassline as it is known. How has the sound grown up over the years?

It’s definitely changed a lot but the vibe of it still remains. People still love to hear a big dirty wobbler dropped no matter what!

I think the difference today is that there’s a lot of bass and bassline sub-genres this time around, and a lot of different and new producers / sounds from up and down the UK, which are all merging together in each other’s sets. Which in turn is gathering huge fan bases from everywhere and spreading like wildfire!

The genre is branching out to Lost & Found, Reading & Leeds and Parklife Festivals, as well as traditionally house based clubs like Fabric. Where do you see it heading next?

Honestly, you never know. It’s huge at the minute and forever growing with no signs of slowing or hitting a brick wall anytime soon, so the sky’s the limit!

Similarly Holy Goof touches on the subject in THIS interview:

In a nutshell then, how would you best describe your sound?

A sound people can party to! There’s so many elements within my music: garage, bassline, grime, house and more! I don’t really think there’s a label as of yet that people call this sound. I guess it gets branded under the ‘UK bass’ umbrella which is so wide at the moment.

The Holy Goof interview is from 2016 so maybe this has changed but he seems to infer that the sound they are developing is or was in its what do you call it moment.

For me then there are currently two or maybe three strands that show potential as becoming or having become the next stop on the hardcore continuum. Personally I believe that Deep Tech will go the same way as Bassline and Bass House and get more hardcorey à la Aaron Vybe and Jack n Danny and maybe meet up with the Bassline / Bass House strand at some point. The more trad house orientated Deep Tech DJs such as Majesty and Lee Edwards I see being subsumed into trad house. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[adhoccc]

Pesquisando e escrevendo sobre o Burial para o One Week One Band, eu me deparei com uma série de ensaios (aparentemente famosos) do Simon Reynolds sobre sua teoria do Hardcore Continuum e a música eletrônica inglesa. É um verdadeiro achado, muito embora era uma questão de tempo até eu encontrar, efetivamente, os sete textos - afinal, a internet, na mais clichê das acepções, é uma rede de hyperlinks que não podem ser ignorados.

Como ele diz:

I call it a ‘continuum’ because that’s what it is: a musical tradition/subcultural tribe that’s managed to hold it together for nearly 20 years now, negotiating drastic stylistic shifts and significant changes in technology, drugs, and the social/racial composition of its own population. It’s been a bumpy but exhilarating ride, but let no one doubt that it’s the same rollercoaster at every stage of the journey (a ride which most likely has yet to reach its end). And I call it ‘Hardcore’ because the tradition started to take shape circa 1990 with what people called Hardcore Techno or Hardcore Rave, or sometimes simply Ardkore. These early sounds – bleep tunes from the North East, breakbeat house and ragga techno from London – were the first time that the UK came up with its own unique mutant versions of House and Techno (ironically by adding elements from dub reggae, dancehall, and hiphop that weren’t British in origin, but equally would never have been let into the mix back in Chicago and Detroit). From Jungle and 2-step to today’s Grime and Bassline, the basic parameters of the music have stayed the same as they were in the early Hardcore, although the relative balance of various sources (reggae, rap, R&B, Eurotechno, etc) has shifted, and the beats-per-minute rate has fluctuated wildly. Those core elements are: beat-science seeking the intersection between ‘fucked up’ and ‘groovy’; dark bass pressure; MCs chatting fast over live-mixed DJ sets; samples and arrangement ideas inspired by pulp soundtracks and orchestrated pop. In a profound sense, underneath two decades of relentless sonic mutation, this is the same music, the same culture. What’s also endured has been the scene’s economic infrastructure: pirate radio stations, independent record shops (often in out-of-the-way urban areas), white labels and dubplates, specific rave promoters and clubs (again often in the less glitzy, non-central areas of cities).

Around the time of 2-step and “Adult Hardcore”, I also noticed a continuity in my approach: I realised that I’d been operating a little like an ethnomusicologist, someone who gets involved in the tribe and joins in the rituals, and in the process has their objectivity compromised more than a little. I’ve been what anthropologists call a ‘participant-observer’. A critic-fanatic. Hands down, this Hardcore Continuum thing is the most remarkable popcult phenomenon I’ve witnessed with my own eyes and ears. For me it’s been the most exciting music of our time; the most thrilling but also the most thought-provoking.

Tudo está alocado aqui.

[ukhousereport]

Deep Tech & Grime ・Deep TechとGrimeの関係について

English below　↓↓↓

Frankie $です！ずっとFrankly$ickとしてGrimeのDJとして音楽活動してきたので、急にDeep TechというHouse音楽にはまってしまったことに違和感を覚える人もいるかもしれないので、今日は、GrimeとDeep Techとの接点について説明したいと思います。結論から言うと、GrimeとDeep Techは同じ「Hardcore Continuum」に当てはまるジャンルであることは何より注目すべきだろう。「Hardcore Continuum」というのは、イギリスのクラブカルチャーが89年から一貫して継続している理論のことです。これはSimon Reynolds氏が提唱した理論であり、現在広く認識されています。音性の類似性はともかくとして、デモグラ（聞いている人たち・活動している人たち）が同じという極めて肝心な特徴があるということはぜひ知っておいてほしいです。

それとは引き換え、Deep Techはロンドンの、いわば「プロジェクト」出身、黒人のトラックメーカーが中心になっています。さらに、実際にGrimeを作っていたトラックメーカーが目立って多いです。海賊ラジオに多くプレイされており、イベントもUK  Garageの最盛期のようにイベントが数え切れないほどあります。どこ言ってもCutting Shapesというディープテックのダンスを踊っている人を見かけるし、道を歩いていると怪しい車から爆音で流れてくることも多いです。 分かりやすい例で言うと、Grimeの最盛期には若い子たちがロンドンのバスに乗って、携帯からGrimeのInstroを流しながらラップしているのをよく目にしていました。

今は、同じ若い子たちはこう遊んでいます。最高。

もう一つ例あげると、グライムのレーブは「危ない」というイメージがありました。 Deep Techのレーブのごく一部ではありますが、同じイメージがついてしまいました。Houseのレーブが「危ない」なんてよくわからない発言だなと思いましたが、シーンの人たちと話していたら、以前「ロードラップ」を聞いていたディーラー（売人）の人たちが普通にクラブでEcstasyやって踊っているのがよく目にするといいます。Cutting Shapesを踊っている人たちも、「貧乏」のイメージがついてしまい、Shufflerの格好（ナイキのHuaracheという靴など）聞いている人はShufflerの疑いでクラブに入れないこともあります。さらに厳しいクラブでは、参加者のFacebookを見てShuffleの動画をアップしているかどうかを確認してそこで入れるかどうか判断するという極めてClassist・Racistな残念な状況です。 いい面で言うと、Houseを聞くようになり、アグレッシブの気持ちを捨て人生の方向性を変えたというロードの人たちもいるそうです。 さて、GrimeトラックメーカーがHouseを作るとどうなる？ と、気になる方は以下のクリップを聞いてみましょう。

①　Grimeファンの誰もが知っているRude Kidは以下のようなハイテックGrimeで広く知られています。

６ヶ月前いきなりSoundcloudに以下のような曲がアップされました。

ヴォーカルやDelayの使い方はいかにもDeep Techらしく、普通のHouse イベントでは絶対まわしていけない、最高にハードな曲です。

さらにこれでCraig DavidをリミックスしてUK Garage感を極めます。

これで同じ感じでHouse感たっぷりのDiva ヴォーカルを活かしています。

これでSaturdayという有名なGrime曲をそのままDeep Techリミックスへと息を吹きかえます。 これらの曲を聴いて「好きじゃない」と思っている人はUK GarageとGrimeが本当にわかっていて好きでいるかどうか疑います笑。

② J Beatz

これはDJの時よくかけていた曲。

これはDJの時よくかけている曲。

③ S.E.F

Switched On RecordsというDeep Techレーベルを運営しているS.E.Fと話してみたら、なんと、GrimeがGrimeと呼ばれるようになる前に活躍していたBlack Opsクルーのメンバーでした。

グライム以外のHardcore ContinuumジャンルからDeep Techへ乗り換えたアーティスト。

④ X5 Dubz

X5 Dubzはグライムではなくて、Basslineのトラックメーカーですが、自分のサウンドを再定義した面で含めるべきです。 このレコードをよくクラブでまわしていました。

この同じネタを2015へ飛ばしてみるとこうなります。

さらにヤバさアップ＋Cutting Shapesの画像を加えるとこうなります。最高。

⑤　Tazer

極めてGrimeyなUK Funkyを作っていたTazerのEP。

Deep Tech作るようになって、以下の曲がSonyにサインされ、現在買えなくなっています笑。間違いないDeep Techのアンセム。

ダークのUK Funkyから乗り換えてきたアーティスト多くいますので、Mr SoloとFormulaもぜひチェックしてみてください：

https://soundcloud.com/mista-solo

https://soundcloud.com/topshelfmaterial/sets/formula-vibrating-touch-ep 

さらにGrime度の高いDeep TechをほかにもDigしたいという方はTop Shelf Material (https://soundcloud.com/topshelfmaterial)やMFR Recordsというレーベルは要チェックです。（https://soundcloud.com/mfrrecords) 意見・コメントがありましたら、ぜひコメントしていただければと思います。。

Today we’re gonna talk a bit about the relationship between deep tech and grime music. At any given moment in the history of UK rave you can pinpoint a genre or two which were leading the way in terms of bangers-produced, crowd numbers, radio play, buzz. Amidst the bewildering diversity of UK dance music in the year 2015 it is perhaps fair to say that the two genres leading the way today are deep tech and new skool grime in its various forms. For many people it seems to be a choice between one and the other - and we at UKHR aren’t gonna pretend to be neutral onlookers: deep tech’s better, but your milage may vary ;)

While there’s overall very little crossover between these two scenes as they currently stand, in a way they can both claim to be the descendants of classic grime.

The relationship between deep tech and grime is in someways pretty simple: a huge number of people currently involved in the deep tech scene were involved with grime beforehand. On a demographic level, they both evolved in east and south London and appeal to the same working class and multi-racial demographics. And, as grime was systematically banned from clubs across the capital, the "urban" (read "black") following of deep tech music has led to many clubs banning shuffling and shufflers. Cutting shapes plays the same role to teenagers now that spitting bars over a mobile phone beat did to youth ten years ago: https://instagram.com/p/tMF80wA3Yb/

Besides these personal and cultural links, there are many musical connections ranging from a generally cold and minimalistic aesthetic that brings to mind early grime at it’s most spartan:

To a conscious incorporation of grime sounds:

But in many ways grime and deep tech are total opposites. Grime was an MC led scene - even the presence of hosts over deep tech sets can be controversial. Grime parties were often about lyrical prowess and which bars could get the most wheelups - deep tech raves are all about the dancing. Grime was all about skunk - deep tech is all about MDMA and balloons. Grime was about keeping it real - deep tech is about loosing yourself in the music. Violence - verbal or otherwise - was at the centre of grime’s self-image - with deep tech the code words are peace, love and house music.

Deep tech then, evolved not only out of grime music, but in reaction against it. UK rave music can be said to be defined by a series of contradictions* - striving for pop success vs. keeping it underground; feminine vs. masculine elements; swinging syncopation vs. stiff rhythms etc. At times the music has swung to one extreme or the other - tech-step DnB purged all the party vibes and human elements from jungle, leaving an extremely dark and techy sound - speed garage brought the funk and soul and ragga elements back. 2-step garage, after a period of churning out hits which flawlessly fused dancefloor energy with pop sensibility, went too far down the commercial route and ended up vibe less and overproduced - grime and dubstep evolved in reaction to this, bringing the darkness back.

*Man like Simon Reynolds goes into this in way more detail here, wicked read: http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.jp/2009/06/nuum-and-its-discontents-5-masculine.html

Deep tech for me is the pendulum swinging back towards danceability, groove and fun. Perhaps in the future it too will swing too far in one direction or the other - perhaps it will draw closer to international house music and loose the UK elements which give it its edge. But for now it remains perfectly poised between the grittiness of grime music and the sexy swing of house, and that’s what makes it the best music in the world right now.

Anyway, that’s enough of the history lesson, here are a few of our favourite artists and tracks from the intersection of grime and deep tech:

1) Rude Kid

From

To

2) J Beatz

From

To

3) Tazer

From grimey funky

to scene defining deep tech

4) S.E.F

From a member of the legendary grime crew Black Ops:

to label head of the always on-point Switched On records:

And superlative deep tech producer:

5) Luke Lawrell AKA Flukes AKA 1 half of Crazy Cousinz from gyal tune grime:

and producing the uncontestedly biggest uk funky banger:

to creating the first UK deep tech track and kicking off this whole current house wave:

  6) Paper Aero Plane - Splurgeboys, Snowy Danger, James Pyke & Kadey James on SBTV

An experiment rather than a full on trend, a road rap/grime crew spitting over an 8 bar edit of Dennis Ferrer’s wicked remix of London Grammar’s Sights. Given the hostility to full blown MCing in deep tech (Sample quote from man like Mark Radford “4 guys on stage chatting, spitting bars at each other and all of that, it’s not wanted in this music”) I don’t see full-on MC vocal deep tech tracks taking off. But what an experiment! Party vibes and all the touch-stones - house! shuffling! balloons! East End art students! - that make this one of the best lyrical summaries of London in the year 2015 about.

Grime runs deep in deep tech’s bones. It seems to me that the people who can’t hear the gritty UK energy that is the animating life force of this music, who see deep tech as ‘just tech house’ need to realise: these grime luminaries haven’t lost touch with UK music, you have.

[ravingman]

BBC 2 Jungle documentary (All Black TV; 1994) 3 of 3