::|CONTENTS
- History
- Making Breakcore
Breakcore is a genre of electronic music that focuses on high speed, high BPM, frantic percussion that emerged in the late 90s from jungle, hardcore rave, and gabber.
Breakcore is a hard genre to define because of its shared influences with other genres: that is, what was considered breakcore and what was considered IDM (or "drill 'n bass") grew closer together. Sometimes it's even hard to tell if something is breakcore or closer to a very technical jungle track. It especially doesn't help that in 2019 a very large amount of people on the internet, led by a completely different group of musicians, started calling an unrelated genre breakcore. Even the example on wikipedia falls into the second, unrelated group.
History
Proto-breakcore (94-99)
The proto-breakcore would be defined something like "harsh-noisy jungle and/or hardcore rave" generally made in a rude mood. Here's some examples from Bloody Fist
Nasenbluten - Dirty Rotten Bastard (1995), Digital Hardcore Recordings
Alec Empire - The Peak (1996) and Ambush records
Aphasic & DJ Scud - I Hear A New World (1997). Pay attention to the emotion these tracks are trying to convey, and any vocal samples - this is what connects everything together.
Breakcore (00s)
With this eclectic list of musical tastes (or lack of taste :) ) we finally see breakcore emerge in the 2000s. If I (
blower) were to recommend one album to explain what breakcore is, I would pick
Venetian Snares - The Chocolate Wheelchair Album (2003) which exemplifies the important aspects of breakcore: high-speed obliterated drumkits, reggae vocals, rave stabs and reese basses, bizzare left-field sampling, noise, nasty speedcore gabber kicks, and a f*** you attitude to the listener and to music in general. However, breakcore may only have some of these elements, save the first and the last, which are constant - so be wary of thinking breakcore is just "amen breaks and gabber kicks".
Compare VSnares' flavor of unhinged with another classic breakcore album from Planet Mu,
Shitmat - Full English Breakfest (2004) which leans heavier on the kind of ridiculous pop-culture sampling humor we heard earlier from Nasenbluten. Shitmat calls this Mashcore. Even though it's really, really funny, you probably shouldn't submit this to BotB. :(
Breakcore is a lot of things. If we change the palette to something closer to glitch and IDM-ish, we get releases like
xanopticon - psicicite (2006) and
Venetian Snares - Songs About My Cats (2001) Check out the labels Mirex
Various - Carbon (2004) and Cock Rock Disco
Various - The Cock Rock Disco 2006 Free Compilation for a good variety. Wow those are both great album covers.
DJ Scotch Egg deserves a mention for getting chiptune with it.
DJ Scotch Egg - KFC Core (2005) Did you know DJ Scotch Egg is in Seefeel? You learn something new every day.
2010s and 20s
Bizarrely, although 00s breakcore might be hard to find, 10s and 20s breakcore, especially the latter, becomes even harder to find. Definitely check out Igorrr, Ruby my Dear
Igorrr & Ruby my Dear - Maigre (2014), and whatever all the artists linked to in the previous section are doing.
Doormouse - Skelechairs (2013) Venetian Snares - Your Face (2015) enduser - Collapse (2021)
Japan Invasion
Although breakcore's roots are in the UK, which is arguably still the biggest country for the genre, a small but very energetic scene also grew in Japan, with artists such as DJ Sharpnel, OVe-NaXx, and CDR. In more recent years, newer breakcore artists have been keeping the scene alive with their own twists on the genre, such as USK, Limited Toss, Laxenanchaos.
Another notable figure in the Japanese scene is Biohannya, who was very active in promoting and organizing the scene both online and offline. In 2016 Biohannya developed a reputation for commenting on almost every breakcore track on Soundcloud, as explained in this documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmjyc5Xdx2E
From 2012-2016 Biohannya also ran an active blog showcasing breakcore and other genres.
http://biohannya.blogspot.com/2016/12/bioawards2016-breakcore.html
In 2017, some of the biggest Japanese breakcore artists played a guest show at Bangface UK, and released a compilation album:
https://japaninvasion.bandcamp.com/album/japan-invasion-compilation
This album gives a little glimpse into at least a portion of Japanese breakcore scene in the 2010s (although to be honest a lot of the tracks are in different genres, given the wide variety of artists represented)
Making Breakcore
Ok great - now that you've run the gauntlet of breakcore listening and your ears are fatigued, you should know what is and isn't breakcore. A good thing to keep in mind is, although it might push the tempo crazy high and assault the audience with its bizzare sense of humor, breakcore is still danceable. Download all the sample packs you can find and get weird with it. Also, breakcore is not anime. That's just not what it is, I'm sorry. OK GO!
