Amazing track. Techikore is a phenomenal talent, and we're very lucky to have him. It's telling that the UK Hardcore NWO wasted money and platform on importing ex and part time hardcore djs whilst utterly ignoring the genuine now-local-talent over there. As a scene we've got better at exporting provably failed strategies than music. Time to pull "UK" out of the title 🇬🇧😜😅
The problem always is when everyone does the same thing. The best new direction for the genre is diversity, experimentation, not throwing away genre roots and troupes, and people "playing with their heart". I've been saying this since 2012, but since it's all basically died under the alternate mooted model (and we're alive) it *might* get listened to more closely 😂😉
trippnface Advanced Member
United States
1,661 posts Joined: Jan, 2010
Posted - 2019/05/14 : 18:07:27
quote:Originally posted by rafferty:
quote:Originally posted by Samination:
Well, I kinda agree that I dont like his stuff either. But that's at least a much, much better answer than Gammer would've given. Kudos for him saying that he likes the current sound instead of saying that the old one was suffocating him, like Gammer did.
It was suffocating everyone. Try eating the same meal for 7 days in a row. That is what the old Trance Hardcore was feeling like.
Everyone has moved on from that era. Even Hixxy when you hear his new podcasts on Rinse FM.
A new generation of ravers love it. Let them enjoy it. They will never care for stuff from the 2000s.
alot of truth for sure.
whatev, they can keep their garbage. the psytrance scene nowdays is more hardcore than this gaffe. or the dnb scene. basically any other genre i listen to feels more hardcore than this hardstyley crap
DJIntensity Senior Member
Australia
447 posts Joined: Oct, 2017
Posted - 2019/05/14 : 21:49:45
His latest collaboration with Weaver is amazing featuring Lokka Vox One Seventy label is making amazing progress since it came out.
LeVzi Advanced Member
United Kingdom
944 posts Joined: Feb, 2019
Posted - 2019/05/15 : 06:59:23
quote:Originally posted by DJIntensity:
His latest collaboration with Weaver is amazing featuring Lokka Vox One Seventy label is making amazing progress since it came out.
I assume you mean this ?
It's gash. See, there is a world of difference between a song using vocal samples, and a song written around the vocal. The latter is what suffocates all hardcore. and has done for 20 years.
DJIntensity Senior Member
Australia
447 posts Joined: Oct, 2017
Posted - 2019/05/15 : 14:47:21
quote:Originally posted by LeVzi:
quote:Originally posted by DJIntensity:
His latest collaboration with Weaver is amazing featuring Lokka Vox One Seventy label is making amazing progress since it came out.
I assume you mean this ?
It's gash. See, there is a world of difference between a song using vocal samples, and a song written around the vocal. The latter is what suffocates all hardcore. and has done for 20 years.
That?s the one it?s a okay tune mind you though not all Technikore tunes with Weaver are gash.
trippnface Advanced Member
United States
1,661 posts Joined: Jan, 2010
Posted - 2019/05/15 : 16:04:29
quote:Originally posted by LeVzi:
quote:Originally posted by DJIntensity:
His latest collaboration with Weaver is amazing featuring Lokka Vox One Seventy label is making amazing progress since it came out.
I assume you mean this ?
It's gash. See, there is a world of difference between a song using vocal samples, and a song written around the vocal. The latter is what suffocates all hardcore. and has done for 20 years.
Elliott Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,146 posts Joined: May, 2012
Posted - 2025/07/24 : 03:46:56
quote:Originally posted by trippnface:
cant stand his current sound tbh. seen someone else say the same thing, and this was his response.
"I'm not sure I can agree with that. Before this 'style' (which itself is just influenced by slightly more modern production values and trends), literally everybody was using the VEC Hard 185 kick drum in every track, everyone was doing one finger stepped melodies, and it was craving a fresh direction. I absolutely love the new sound, that's why I make it. Not because I'm following a formula or trend, but because I like it. I'd be silly to make it if I didn't, each track takes so many hours to produce now, I have to enjoy what I'm working on. I'm sorry it's not for you, but hardcore is no more formulaic than it's ever been, or most genres of electronic dance music to be fair."
Hello mate! Long time no see. Hope you're well. :)
Funnily enough, almost immediately after I made this thread, he switched to EDMcore on OneSeventy. And I predicted/jinxed it when I wrote a whole decade ago (god, that's depressing): "I hope he sticks to his guns and keeps producing in a similar style. He (thankfully) never fully committed to producing the 'new' hardcore and I hope that's because he prefers making the older stuff that he does so well."
What did he do within months of that post? Exactly what I hoped he wouldn't. Honestly, I haven't liked much of his work since I made this thread. But he did produce "Tortuga 2016" after that, which was a screamer of a late 2000s style tune. He also released bangers like "Fallen". And what he's making is still technically elite. It's just not always my thing. (Man, I miss Squad-E, who went out on top producing the style he was so good at.)
Fair play to Alf, though. That's the most nuanced, respectful, and honest response I've ever seen to a critical comment on a top-tier artist. It sounds like he genuinely did want to make the transition. I've always said that I don't begrudge any artist who went in that direction if/because it was artistically fulfilling to them. But I also feel very strongly - and know for a fact - that a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and felt pressured to produce whatever the top tier were making (which we've seen during every major transition in UKHC, IMO).
I don't even think Alf's wrong. There are only so many keyboard chord progressions you can play over an amen (death of old skool) or only so many chordal or melodic supersaw riffs you can crank out (end of the 2000s era). HC is inherently restrictive, usually requiring major keys, basic chords (you don't hear many extended/7ths/dim/sus etc. -- even "Phantom 7th" doesn't have any, though it does have an unusual chord progression), and the "obvious" next step in a sequence is the most instantly pleasing and impactful, resulting in tons of "I know exactly where this sidechained sequence of chords is going for the entire track".
HC probably did need to be refreshed again. But maybe we just needed to elevate the complexity of the music or something (or do what e.g. Darren Hotchkiss did and start experimenting with different lead synth styles over supersaw chords). It feels like we just change the leads and perc samples we use every 5 years or so in order to accomplish what we've always done since trancecore: copy mainstream dance/EDM trends at 170 BPM (c.f. dubstep and electro in the early 2010s). I dunno if that was the right direction because I don't think mainstream dance music was in a good place in 2016 (or is now). It's a bit of an insoluble mess: there's a finite number of euphoric, anthemic chord sequences and melody lines, so what we saw between 2006 and about 2011 was a kinda race to create the best production values possible. I think that period saw the single greatest leap in production values in HC history, but it was all clearly getting diminishing returns.
2012-14, as harsh as I was on it at the time, actually offered so much potential in hindsight. There are/were so many potential shifts in direction we could've taken that would've been preferable, especially if we'd mixed them all together instead of sticking to HC's groupthink mentality. We had that brief phase with tracks like "Anything For You" and "Home (Breeze Remix)"; we had that phase where hardstyle and hardcore were almost becoming mirror images; we had old skool and HH stabs over modern kicks and basses; we could've just done increasingly intricate trancier stuff; we could've done more stuff like Gammer's "Good Life"; and I would've even be happy with more tuneful electrocore like "Love My Way (IYF Remix)" and *talented* dubcore like "Screwface" ("dubcore" was a misused term for what should've been called electrocore). I bitched a lot about wanting nothing but supersaws but I've since realised that many of my favourite tracks of all time (like the aforementioned "Love My Way" remix, "Notek", "Stick 'Em", "Stabiliser", "Pacman", "The Bleep", "Electro Stomp", "Screwface", "Horns of Jericho", "Switch", "Roid Rage") weren't even conventionally supersaw-driven tracks (which I tend to find have poor longevity anyway).
Now I'd like a big variety of styles, but that just never seems to happen due to the bandwagon effect. Ironically, I finally see what CDJay was trying to do. I'm still haunted by the fact that I never got to clear out the HU store before it disappeared. I was laid up for a few years during that time. (And, sure, making UKHC varied still wouldn't make it a distinctive genre beside the BPM but at least elitists like Gammer couldn't say it was all the same thing. Being undefinable is a criterion in its own right.)
And yes Gammer would've handled it very differently:
quote:Originally posted by Samination:
Well, I kinda agree that I dont like his stuff either. But that's at least a much, much better answer than Gammer would've given. Kudos for him saying that he likes the current sound instead of saying that the old one was suffocating him, like Gammer did.
Hello, my old mate. How's it? Hope you're well.
Totally agree. But he went further than that. He basically told me his old music was boring and heavily implied we were stupid for liking it. He has shown naked contempt for both the music and the fans who got him where he is on several occasions. Ofc, I'm responding to an old post. This would've been around the time that he and Darren Styles essentially attempted to break from hardcore and leave everyone else - and all the old baggage - behind them (so much for "Together We Rise", huh?), resulting in Gammer making those pompous announcements back in 2015/16(?) that it had been a banner year for HC because of what he was doing. He pissed me off in several stages, and one of those was screwing over HU before, during, and after all this breakaway shit. I dunno what they're up to these days -- collabing with far bigger artists than exist in hardcore, from what little I've seen.
Being the subject of the first ever hardcore diss track was not what turned me off Gammer (well, obviously, because you have to diss someone before you get dissed back). While it was probably the worst way he could've responded to a mildly critical obvious joke message and the subsequent death threats proved to be irritating spam, it was a funny incident overall. He did apologise to me in private after seeing what he'd wrought, to be fair, but I think he was naive if he didn't see that coming.
While I'm awake and semi-functional, I wanna set the record straight on that: the folk history now goes that I called him and/or his music "shit". IDK where that came from. I never called him or his music "shit". That word was never used. I actually said, "You used to be good and now you are bad". I intentionally worded it stupidly, like someone with a poor grasp on the English language, because it was a fun way of saying, "I don't like your new stuff". I wasn't trying to be constructive - that much is true - but there's nothing I could've said to him that would've made him a better producer or changed his mind, so why bother with nuance? Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of the HH.com "hate machine" (as the top tier saw us then and quite probably still do) saw the funny side or agreed with me or were actually angry on my behalf that Gammer had put me on blast so publicly and exposed me to all kinds of semi-literate insults and threats that don't bear repeating. I'd estimate that I got about 150 abusive or threatening messages in various forms across all platforms.
quote:Originally posted by Vladel:
quote:Originally posted by Samination:
Well, I kinda agree that I dont like his stuff either. But that's at least a much, much better answer than Gammer would've given. Kudos for him saying that he likes the current sound instead of saying that the old one was suffocating him, like Gammer did.
I don't want to sound negative but i haven't really liked anything he has done in seven years.
Hey again mate! Hope you're still around and doing well. I know you were always Team Supersaw like me and trippinface. What was his last good year for you? He made bangers in 2012 and then seemed to go into retreat for a while. He became much less prolific for a while after that. I wish I could say it was because he was focusing on quality over quantity - and "Fallen", "Sun Is Rising", "Tortuga 2016" etc. are all-timers - but I think he was moving to Australia and dealing with massive upheaval in his personal life. I hope the migration worked out for him given that he works primarily in genres that are only ever declining in fortunes.
__________________________________ old soundcloud
i gave up producing
Printer friendly
Posted - 2019/05/14 : 15:56:09
