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Elliott
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,137 posts
Joined: May, 2012
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 Posted - 2016/10/08 : 16:39:17
quote:
Originally posted by CDJay:
See, as much as I don't like to engage here.... 2013. That's when we started our direct sale store.
We've put out more albums in that short time than there were in the previous 10 years.
There's a CLSM album, a Marc Smith album, a Brisk album, a Dougal & Gammer album, Happy Hardcore Underground, countless new artist albums. two major compilation albums and a bunch of leading label albums. Free EPs, store samplers, endless podcasts. Within two years, '13-'15. I'd argue that's the best curated content dump run the genre has had since the regular vinyl releases of long yesteryear.
We'll close the year with a UHD Blu-ray and major comp revival, and yes.... if you hate "the new sound" it'll definitely leave you cold if you approach it looking for a fight. That said, this happens every time there is a shift in style or soundset (and I really wasn't anywhere near as keen on the genericore of 2008 - 2011, or the dubcore stuff of 2011-2013 as some). Our role has shifted from being an alternative platform to the mainstream to whatever we're attempting now. I'd rather be pushing diversity, but atm the front line needs a boost so we'll direct attention to that.
I remain somewhat convinced that the major informed/articulate detractors (yes, you two, I actually do see where you're coming from here) are informed by affinity to the 00s. I've always been a child of the 90's and frankly I see more of that spirit in some of the stuff I'm sitting on than I did of nearly anything that featured on an AATW album. Some of the more house-tinted stuff unsurprisingly has pianos, melancholy and discordance that reminds me of Vibes & Wishdokta or golden era Force & Styles than simplistic hands-up-scouse-house-core.
Swings and roundabouts; it doesn't mean you care more about a genre; it shows an affinity that has a best before. That's fine, it's happened when 4-beat came in, it happened when vocals became predominant, it happened when the original trance elements came in (badly) in 98/99. It happened to me around 2006, and it happened to me even more so in 2012. Join the club; *your* golden era left me cold. 
CDJay
I want to clarify that I really respect your dedication to keeping "hardcore" (as an abstract concept -- let's not quibble over the definition) alive. I have huge respect for you going against both internal and external pressures and managing to stay afloat. I admire the HU project even if I think the music is mostly shit. And, obviously, that's not a criticism of you or HU specifically; it's a statement on the genre itself. I hope you don't take any of my hardcore-bashing as HU-bashing because that's definitely not the intent. You have your own form of integrity; the value schema might not match my own but what you're doing requires plenty of integrity nonetheless.
I can accept that the genre has just left me behind. I understand that most people hit their wall as hardcore evolves past their preferred sound in a narrowly-defined epoch but, frankly, this is a new feeling for me. I love everything from '93 old skool to '12 "snare seconds" UK hardcore. That's an incredibly broad spectrum that I'm on board with. But for some reason, I just can't abide the latest changes. I think it was when the role of the supersaw faded that hardcore really lost me. It's not happy anymore. It's not euphoric. It doesn't give you the tingles. Old skool piano riffs, top-notch happy hardcore and the many, many amazing tracks of the '00s could all do that (to me, their unifying factor was the feelings they could evoke). I got into this music because I could utterly lose myself in an almost trance-like state of happiness, even without pharmaceutical assistance. Now that's gone. And that is how I really judge the death of hardcore.
What I would've liked to have seen is a split in the scene. We've been there before with happy hardcore/jungle. Every major change in hardcore has had its own distinct identifier: old skool, happy hardcore, UK hardcore. But recently the evolution has been more insidious. Surely you can see that hardcore in 2016 sounds nothing like hardcore in 2007 (when I started listening). The problem is that there has been no split in nomenclature or the scene itself. This newer stuff has merely subsumed the late '00s sound so that there's no room for the latter in "hardcore" anymore. When everything changed, the people pulling the strings behind the scene (heh, accidental puns) should've had the decency to **** off and start their own genre with all-new labels and their own events. The rest of us could've carried on with the "UK hardcore" label and the supersaw-driven music it had come to entail. And then it would've been legitimate to carry on producing proper hardcore, instead of it being curtailed. Some of the blame obviously rests with the scene of dumbass zombie producers who will just try to copy whatever Styles and Gammer are doing at the present moment. They followed the pied piper and I refuse to believe that everyone wanted to move away from supersaw-driven hardcore of their own volition.
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old soundcloud
i gave up producing
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Edited by - Elliott on 2016/10/08 17:03:03 |
CDJay
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
3,049 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2016/10/08 : 17:01:53
You're very on-the-nose with one major factor; the second the bigger artists dictate that a sound is "old" or "new" then it's almost impossible to do much else. Fantastically the "production" argument is *STILL* going on, as if that's the problem. HEH! It truly is all a comedy of errors, I really would love to talk about things FAR more frankly than I generally am able to publically. Perhaps, next year, I'll finally be able to!
Other than that, as I said, I personally miss "proper rave" noises far more than super-saws, so I'll be fighting for that with HHU2
CDJay
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Http://www.hardcoreunderground.co.uk
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Edited by - CDJay on 2016/10/08 17:03:17 |
Captain Triceps
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
2,184 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2016/10/08 : 21:51:38
quote:
Originally posted by CDJay:
I personally miss "proper rave" noises far more than super-saws, so I'll be fighting for that with HHU2
CDJay
This, a thousand times. I don't expect happy hardcore to ever be the dominant sound again, I just wish there was more of it.
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Some of my remixes, original tracks and mixes here:
https://soundcloud.com/bradders-tracks-and-remix
https://soundcloud.com/bradders1982
https://soundcloud.com/paulbradley1982
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Elliott
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,137 posts
Joined: May, 2012
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Posted - 2016/10/08 : 22:13:10
quote:
Originally posted by CDJay:
You're very on-the-nose with one major factor; the second the bigger artists dictate that a sound is "old" or "new" then it's almost impossible to do much else. Fantastically the "production" argument is *STILL* going on, as if that's the problem. HEH! It truly is all a comedy of errors, I really would love to talk about things FAR more frankly than I generally am able to publically. Perhaps, next year, I'll finally be able to!
Other than that, as I said, I personally miss "proper rave" noises far more than super-saws, so I'll be fighting for that with HHU2
CDJay
Exactly. Diversity has always been stifled and discouraged (directly and indirectly) within the scene. Hell, a lot of big names would love nothing more than to have complete hegemony over the major means of distribution as well as the major events/promoters (there are some very obvious examples with promoters this decade). There have always been power-grabs in this scene and people fighting for control. And that includes control over the very sound of hardcore itself. Of course, I don't need to tell you about any of that. You probably know a lot more than I do about specific examples, given your insider knowledge.
I hate the way that the scene has been spectacularly unhelpful in allowing the supersaw-driven '00s sounds to continue (and actively hostile to it in some ways). One particularly galling example stands out to me: Gammer once said something to me that basically amounted to "my old music was shit and you're an idiot if you liked it" -- it's on Facebook somewhere if you don't believe me. I would be fine if we had a situation where this modern EDM-inspired hardcore was allowed to co-exist with the older sounds but we don't and that's what makes me so angry and hyper-critical. There's clearly still a market for that classic CXH sound yet it's not being met. I don't believe that is because every single producer in the scene wanted to stop making it and move on. That's ********. Neither of us believe that. What happened to the sound was pure politics and politics should never have the ability to define art.
I think we have a lot of common enemies, my friend. Maybe in 10 years, HU can release a UKHU revival album for the sounds of last decade. Maybe.
For the record, I've always tried to approach everything in hardcore with an open mind. I liked that brief chillout-core thing that seemed to be happening for a while in ~2013 with Anything For You, Breeze's Home remix. I adored some of the more batshit tracks like Notek, I Know You, Don't Care. I enjoyed some of the more thoughtful excesses of dubcore/electrocore like Switch and Screwface. I rushed my tits off to Re-Con & Demand's more modern take on the genre in I'm Sorry, Good Feeling, Heart Bleeds (the latter is probably in my top 20 of the decade so far). I loved some of the stuff that was happening in that weird transition period between old and new like Future Fuzz, Sober, Coming Back To Me. Even new hardcore has had its moments: Fallen, Top Of The World, Free From Form. Point is that I'm not prejudiced. I'm all for diversity (not the F&D album though). I just don't want my favourite sound replaced completely.
The eponymous HU compilations were pure fire from 1 to 5. Like Gammer, you used to be good and now you are bad. ;)
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old soundcloud
i gave up producing
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Edited by - Elliott on 2016/10/08 22:37:21 |
C-LIFE
New Member
United Kingdom
69 posts
Joined: Mar, 2016
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 12:29:14
My Hotel booked getting tickets this weekend im going last one was mint at Leicester, hopefully a bit of Scott brown this year
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skarr
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
527 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:10:00
I'm going to hazard a guess at the line-up, ---- darren styles, dougal, gammer, hixxy , joey riot,squad e, kulbfiller, fracus n darwin with keyes, breeze, Scott Brown, scoot , vibes and livelee, al storm, Alex prospect , mc's storm whizzkid keyes wotsee obie finchy, obviously I don't know what the '1st time world exclusive back 2 backs' will be but I feel it's pretty safe to say that the line-up will be almost EXACTLY the same as the last 3 ravers reunited events bar maybe 1 or 2 people.
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skarr
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
527 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:12:06
Oh and Ben xtreme
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skarr
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
527 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:19:16
Maybe there will be a few new crews, like 'The rouge squad ' , 'The mucky merky UK hardcore patrol ' and 'The ultimate warriors ' but let's just wait and see......
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Cyrax
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
623 posts
Joined: May, 2012
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:40:58
quote:
Originally posted by skarr:
I'm going to hazard a guess at the line-up, ---- darren styles, dougal, gammer, hixxy , joey riot,squad e, kulbfiller, fracus n darwin with keyes, breeze, Scott Brown, scoot , vibes and livelee, al storm, Alex prospect , mc's storm whizzkid keyes wotsee obie finchy, obviously I don't know what the '1st time world exclusive back 2 backs' will be but I feel it's pretty safe to say that the line-up will be almost EXACTLY the same as the last 3 ravers reunited events bar maybe 1 or 2 people.
your close but HTID are involved so I would add :
Thumper
Ajay
Clarkey and Jekyll
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arpz
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,267 posts
Joined: Aug, 2012
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:41:06
lol, probably nailed the lineup tbh.
Supposedly its 97% complete, I assume that's a literal statistic and they've just got to firm up the actual last 3% and not just some figure they pulled out of their arses.
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soundcloud - http://soundcloud.com/arpz // site -
http://arps.io
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skarr
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
527 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:48:26
And possibly Thumpa aswel as he's been bigging them up HARD on Facebook recently, but then again hardcore heaven are involved and we all know how much slamming vinyl should just leave the hardcore scene alone and just focus on drum n bass......
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skarr
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
527 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2016/10/11 : 13:56:11
And maybe someone will write a massive essay before hand about how there going to retire and then announce there massive comeback at the nyd event......
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arpz
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,267 posts
Joined: Aug, 2012
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Posted - 2016/10/18 : 21:09:36
Excited!
There was lots of discussion about a lack of Styles/Sy/Re-Con, and a lot of CDJay telling everyone how wrong they all are and sharing his prophetic wisdom. Any thoughts from this lot?
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soundcloud - http://soundcloud.com/arpz // site -
http://arps.io
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Edited by - arpz on 2016/10/18 21:10:30 |
CDJay
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
3,049 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2016/10/18 : 23:35:13
Bleating on about Sy, and what he has done/did do/can and/or will do, is utterly pointless and it's become a detriment on anything that happens going forward. If you were him, would you want "in"? No. Neither does he, it's self evident, and whatever led us to this point is less relevant now than that salient fact.
Recon clearly had enough of the entanglement whirlpool and related entitlement, thus forcing the TWR lot to become more self reliant which ultimately levels the playing field which I am *all* for.
Sink or swim. Fight or flight.
It's taken longer than I thought it would; the crash didn't really crunch metal as expected and the recovery of sorts has been staggered, muted and staccato. That said, 2017 is game on. I was ready to walk, even very recently, but now I've dug my heels in and it's "Batter-up!" buttercups
CDJay
__________________________________
Http://www.hardcoreunderground.co.uk
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Edited by - CDJay on 2016/10/18 23:37:11 |
Thumpa
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,600 posts
Joined: Feb, 2009
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Posted - 2016/10/26 : 20:22:14
I think its a good lineup!
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