Pack Sample Melody Hardtek
Varinia Swicegood
Free tekno, also known as tekno, freetekno and hardtek, is the music predominantly played at free parties in Europe. The spelling tekno is deliberately used to differentiate the musical style from techno. The music is fast and it can vary between 150 and 185 bpm and is characterised by a pounding repetitive kick drum.[1] Nevertheless, bass drum distortion by clipping is used less often as in the related genre of mainstyle hardcore. Nowadays, some tekno producers also use drum sets that rather sound trancey, since many members of the tekno subculture as well as the psytrance subculture frequently attend the same raves and the two scenes are closely connected.
Tekk/Tekke[2] is mainly produced in Germany and often remixes quotes or audio clips. As dance music, tekkno was unusually rhythm-oriented for the time.[3] Therefore, this term also became synonymous with particularly hard dance music.[3] At times, the number of the letter "k" was used to advertise the supposed hardness of the sound at parties and compilations (Tekno, Tekkno, Tekkkno...). A similar variant appeared shortly afterwards with the emergence of the Freetekno[de] scene. The overall sound of Tekk can be descripted as "dumb" or "asozial/assi", due to its heavy and monotone kicks with repeating vocals. Famous artists are: Die Gebrder Brett, TekkSchuster, OsTEKKe, MoshTekk, HIGHTKK and ViruzZ.
Tekno evolved in tandem with the teknival movement in the early 1990s since many of the teknival organisers and DJs were also making music. The music drew on influences such as hardcore, rave, jungle, early hardcore and techno, with the producers taking the sound in a darker direction. Spiral Tribe was the first to start making and widely disseminating this genre, taking it to France and Eastern Europe after the Criminal Justice act was implemented in the UK. An emphasis is placed on samples from TV shows, films and popular culture which are placed at strategic moments in the tracks. The music was produced with whatever was available: drum machines, synthesisers and keyboards as well as computer programs such as audio/MIDI sequencers and Trackers, sometimes even hitting a random table with a pen. Starting from year 2001 there has been a trend using laptop and laptops for live performances, because the capabilities of both the hardware and software were improving very quick.
Jungletek and raggatek are genres derived directly from hardtek. These genres are often mixed to create fast energetic 190 bpm dance floor music. Kicked off around 2008 in the UK, Mandidextrous & Vandal were among the first producers of these genres. It breathed new life into the underground rave scene not only in the UK but also picking up a strong following in Italy, Spain and Austria to mention a few. Influences for this music also came from the techno scene in Europe where some of the first underground music lovers increase the bpm and added variations in structure, thus becoming tekno. Techno in the UK in the early 1990s was based on a bpm of 130-140. By the 2000s, tekno had gained more speed and hardtek was starting to dominate UK raves, especially in the South and London. Trance also progressed from sweeping delicate melodies to what's now known as hard trance. Hard trance is a faster and bouncier music than its predecessor. In late 2010s, there was a progression of drum and bass (DnB) into neurofunk, which was grittier and had harsher bass and synth sounds.
Jungletek works on exactly the same formula as raggatek, replacing the ragga elements with those from jungle and DnB. It is less known for the vocal arrangements and more for its the bass lines. Jungletek takes the basics of the bass line from well-known jungle and DnB tracks and recreates them in a hardtek format. Original productions also use the simple format of kick-bass with amen breaks. European raggatek and jungletek are often recognizable by their energetic eletro sounds in the bass lines and synth melodies.
Hardcore Techno, also referred to as "Hard Dance", is an umbrella term used to describe the Darker and Edgier variants of Techno, although some people argue that it has evolved into a separate genre of its own. It is mostly distinguishable from its parent genre by a faster tempo (with the BPM often lying above 150), very powerful bass, and a preference for abrasive samples and beats. The genre originated from Western European countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the UK, but it also spawned a small but extremely fierce scene in Japan. Hardcore techno had its heyday in the mid to late nineties when the more commercial Lighter and Softer Happy Hardcore sound spread to popularity.
Subgenres:
- New Beat
- Considered to be the Ur-Example of the genre, this slow and often sinister-sounding style had its origins in Belgium during the late 1980s, pioneered by Praga Khan and others. It is characterized by its fusion of rhythms borrowed from tech house, disco, and hip-hop with dark-sounding synthwork and TB-303 riffs. A largely underground phenomenon, it nonetheless influenced later developments in the genre, and sound samples such as the "Anasthasia" synth were derived directly from it. The most well-known song in this genre is The Immortals' "Techno Syndrome", the theme for Mortal Kombat.
- Old school gabber (also gabba)
- This genre is credited as the one that gave birth to the hardcore techno genre, and subsequent styles of hard dance music draw inspiration from it. It is believed to have originated in Detroit (the birthplace of techno music in general) from acid house and tech house, but it rooted itself in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it became popular on account of being perceived as an affront to the Amsterdam scene which was perceived to be snobby and pretentious. As a result, its sound used to be a pretty simple and straightforward, with the sole goal of making you go crazy without even having to take any drugs. The "gabber" moniker is believed to have originated from an interview with Amsterdam DJ K.C. the Funkaholic, where he was asked how did he felt about the Rotterdam scene; his answer was "Oh, they're just a bunch of gabbers having fun" ("gabber" being an Amsterdam slang word that can be more or less translated as "dude" or "mate"). Eventually, its harder sound and its simplicity ended up dominating the early Dutch techno scene, and by 1995 it started mutating into its mainstream, commercialized variant known as "happy hardcore". Example: Bertocucci Feranzano - XTC Love.
- Speedcore
- Hardcore on steroids. Speed is the main emphasis for this subgenre, with a tempo going 300 BPM at the lower end, and even as high as 1000 BPM. The bass drum can become so fast that it becomes a tone, and unless it's Japanese there are typically very few melodic or even musical elements. Example: Moby - 1000.
- Crossbreed
- A genre that can be best described as gabber with dubstep and drum & bass influences. Usually noisier, slower and with a much greater emphasis on distorted basses, giving the music a synthetic, industrial feel. Example: this hour-and-a-quarter long crossbreed mix.
- Happy Hardcore
- The Lighter and Softer form. Still very fast, but the bass drum is less pounding, the music is notably more "happy" sounding (achieved through the use of major keys), occasional use of piano, and high pitched vocals that frequently sound like they have been inhaling helium, with lyrics about subjects such as love, partying or the love of partying. Example: Blmchen - Boomerang.
- Mkina
- Literally "machine" in intentionally misspelled Spanish. A Spanish genre of hardcore techno that sounds like Eurobeat mixed with hardcore. Related to (but distinct from) Happy Hardcore. Example: kors k - SigSig
- Freeform/UK Hardcore
- Evolved from Happy Hardcore. It is a bit less childish and sappy, uses supersaw synths more, and often features heavier basslines. UK hardcore artists often make many remixes of pop songs. Nightcore, a great majority of j-core and modern happy hardcore are derivatives of this style. Example: S3RL - Dopamine
- Powerstomp
- A more recent derivative of UK hardcore with a greater emphasis on rhythm and groove. It has a recognizable "stomping" pattern of deep kicks and fully resonant offbeat bass, uses less "happy" melodies, and often features rapped vocals. Example: M-Project ft. Jonjo - Pure Powerstomper
- Noisecore/Industrial Hardcore
- Hardcore fused with noise and industrial music. Bass drum driven rhythm is still there, but there are few melodic elements, and harsh samples are frequent.
- Hardstyle
- One of the biggest genres, if not the biggest subgenre of hard dance music, hardstyle is similar to and developed alongside gabber in the '90s and early 2000s. It has its origins in the Dutch and Italian hard dance scenes with the term originally applying to various mid-tempo dance music styles with downpitched kicks and faded or reversed basslines. A characteristic of virtually all hardstyle is its drop-buildup-drop structure, use of screeching "hoover" synths and a big, booming sound that incorporates sidechaining and reverb effects that emphasize the sound of the kick drum. The evolution of hardstyle has resulted in a number of microgenres emerging throughout the years.
- Early hardstyle arose from the 90s hard dance scene and features bass-boosted kicks, sparse instrumentation, and gabber-esque sampled lyrics. This would continue to evolve into the mid-2000s, thanks to the advancement of computer technology and DAW software allowing for more complex yet still "classic" sounds. Example: Brain Ovulation - Kick & Bass (Acid Step Mix)
- Nu-style/Jumpstyle arose in the late 2000s as early hardstyle began to wane in popularity, and new sounds that were conducive to Dutch hakken dancing began to be phased in. It is faster than early hardstyle (at 150 BPM) and is more polished in its production, with the now-distinctive layered kicks (colloquially called "toks") being a defining feature of the sound. Furthermore, compositions became more complex, with a greater number of samples, harsher screeches, cleaner melodies and some songs written in Uncommon Time. Examples: Hyperdrive - Brain Confusion, Headhunterz - Power of the Mind