Electronic » Techno » Hardcore Techno

The fastest, most abrasive form of dance music currently available at any one time, Hardcore Techno was, by the mid-'90s, the province of a startlingly wide array of producers, including breakbeat junglists, industrial trancesters, digital-era punks, and cartoonish ravers. The style originally emerged from Great Britain's 1988 Summer of Love; though the original soundtrack to those warehouse parties was influenced by the relatively midtempo rhythms of Chicago acid house, increased drug intake caused many ravers to embrace quicker rhythms and altogether more frenetic forms of music. Many DJs indulged their listeners by speeding up house records originally intended for 33-rpm play, and producers carried the torch by sampling the same records for their releases. During 1991-92, hardcore/rave music had hit the legitimate airwaves as well, led by hits like SL2's "On a Ragga Tip," T-99's "Anasthasia," and RTS' "Poing." The resulting major-label feeding frenzy produced heavy coverage for lightweight novelty fare like "Go Speed Go" by Alpha Team, "Sesame's Treat" by Smart E's, and "James Brown Is Dead" by L.A. Style. By 1993, British producers like Rob Playford, 4 Hero, and Omni Trio began leading hardcore techno into the breakbeat territory that would later become known as jungle, even as the Teutonic end of hardcore morphed into harder trance and gabba. During the mid-'90s, most ravers had grown out of the dance scene or simply tired of the sound; though the original hardcore/rave sound had spread to much of the British hinterlands as well as continental Europe, most Londoners favored progressive house or the emerging ambient techno. The simultaneous lack of critical coverage but wide spread of the sound -- into the north of England and Scotland as well as the continental centers of Germany and the Netherlands -- served to introduce a variety of underground styles, from the digital hardcore of Germany's Alec Empire to English happy hardcore. In fact, the term had practically become a dinosaur by the end of the decade.