Belgian hardcore techno (also referred to as Belgian techno or rave techno) is an early style of

hardcore techno Hardcore (also known as hardcore techno or hardcore house) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorte ...

that emerged from

new beat New beat is a Belgian electronic dance music genre that fuses elements of new wave, hi-NRG,Simon Reynolds: ''Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture.'' Routledge 1999, , p. 124. EBM and hip hop (e.g. scratching).Timo ...

as EBM and

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...

influences became more prevalent in this genre. It flourished in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

and influenced the sound of early hardcore from

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, UK and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

during the early-1990s, as a part of the

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

movement during that period.Simon Reynolds: ''Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture.'' Soft Skull Press 2012, , p. 110. Belgian hardcore is related to both European techno and

, being generally considered an early form of the latter. The genre is referred to by several other names, such as "hardcore techno", "techno rave", "Belgian rave" and "bretter tekkno". In Mexico, the style was known as "techno industrial", being associated with EBM and new beat. The immediate predecessors of Belgian hardcore were two short-lived new beat subgenres called "hard beat"Nikki van Lierop: ''Hard Beat 1st Compilation.'', 1989.
"Hard Beat is the perfect link between Electronic Body Music and New Beat." and "skizzo".Maurice Engelen: ''Skizzo - A New Method Of Dance.'', 1990.

History

Originally a slow form of electronic dance music, Belgian new beat evolved into a native form of hardcore techno during the early 1990s with the introduction of techno records played at their intended speeds or slightly accelerated. This brutal new hardcore style spread throughout Europe's rave circuit and reached the pop charts. The Belgian hardcore sound also influenced part of the UK and US rave scenes. The genre was spearheaded by Belgian producers from the new beat scene, like

Frank de Wulf Frank De Wulf (born 1968) is a Belgian DJ, musician and record label owner. He is considered one of the pioneers of the Belgian new beat and techno scene. Life and career Frank De Wulf was born in 1968 as the youngest of three sons.Maurice Engelen Maurice Joseph François Engelen (born 7 January 1959), known by his stage name Praga Khan, is a Belgian electronic musician. Khan is considered one of the leading pioneers of the new beat/acid house/techno electronic dance music scene that origi ...

, Oliver Adams and Nikki Van Lierop. This style of music was also pioneered by Dutch projects like

Human Resource Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...

L.A. Style L.A. Style was a Dutch electronic dance music group, consisting of founder, producer and radio DJ Wessel van Diepen (who later also created Nakatomi and the successful Vengaboys), composer Denzil Slemming (a.k.a. Michiel Van Der Kuy of Laser ...

and Anthrophia. Outside mainland Europe, a small group of producers adopted the style in the UK. The main labels that developed this style in the UK were Kickin’ Records, Vinyl Solution, Rabbit City and Edge and Rising High. Producer Caspar Pound of Rising High Records, known by its stage name "The Hypnotist", was a vocal supporter of this style of hardcore techno. The most notable achievement of this style of hardcore in the pop charts is

's single "

James Brown Is Dead "James Brown Is Dead" is a song by Dutch electronic dance music duo L.A. Style, produced by Wessel van Diepen and Denzil Slemming. It was released in August 1991 as the lead single from their debut album, ''L.A. Style'' (1993). The song was a m ...

" reaching the

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot 100 Airplay The Radio Songs chart (previously named Hot 100 Airplay until 2014 and Top 40 Radio Monitor until 1991) is released weekly by ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' magazine and measures the airplay of songs being played on radio stations throughout ...

chart. Notable acts like The Immortals,

2 Unlimited 2 Unlimited are a Belgian/Dutch dance music act, founded by Belgian producers/songwriters Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde in 1991 in Antwerp, Belgium. From 1991 to 1996, Dutch rapper Ray Slijngaard and Dutch vocalist Anita Doth fronted the a ...

, 2 Fabiola and AB Logic achieved relative success blending the style with

dance-pop Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...

. After a brief period of expansion during the early 90s, the style lost popularity, while modern

(

gabber Gabber (; ) is a style of electronic dance music and a subgenre of hardcore techno, as well as the surrounding subculture. The music is more commonly referred to as Hardcore, which is characterised by fast beats, distorted & heavier kickdrums, ...

trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...

happy hardcore Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or "hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s. H ...

and

jungle music Jungle is a genre of dance music that developed out of the UK rave scene and sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and ...

took place as the leading genres within the rave circuit.

Characteristics

Being rooted in the sounds of new beat, EBM and techno, Belgian hardcore has been characterized as a "distinctively Belgian brand of industrial-tinged techno where melody was displaced by noise". In fact, R&S label owner Renaat Vandepapeliere considered that the Belgian sound was result of the mixture of

industrial music Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initiall ...

and

acid house Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesiz ...

. It is a mainly a

four on the floor ''Four on the Floor'' is a 1999 compilation album consisting of songs by bands on Panic Button Records. It features four tracks by four of the labels bands, Screeching Weasel, Moral Crux A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is c ...

style of dance music, harder and faster than it's new beat and techno predecessors, but slower (between 120 and 140 BPM) than

and modern

. In comparison to these styles, it also lacks the highly distorted drum kick. It also differs from

breakbeat hardcore Breakbeat hardcore (also referred to as hardcore rave or oldskool hardcore) is a music genre of the very early 1990s that spawned from the UK rave scene. It combines four-on-the-floor rhythms with breakbeats usually sampled from hip hop. In ...

in that it does not focus on the

breakbeat Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK ...

drum pattern or lacks it altogether.Stuart Borthwick & Ron Moy: ''Popular Music Genres: An Introduction.'' Edinburgh University Press 2004, , p. 197-220. Many of the songs in this style take cue from

the KLF The KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing ...

's 1988 instrumental

anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to short ...

What Time Is Love? "What Time Is Love?" is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by the band the KLF. It featured prominently and repeatedly in their output from 1988 to 1992 and, under the moniker of 2K, in 1997. In its original form, the ...

", with similar

fanfare A fanfare (or fanfarade or flourish) is a short musical flourish which is typically played by trumpets, French horns or other brass instruments, often accompanied by percussion. It is a "brief improvised introduction to an instrumental perfo ...

s, blended with rock-like patterns similar to Rhythm Device's 1989 hard beat song "Acid Rock". The heavy use of synth "stabs" (short, one-hit samples of orchestra hits or synth chords), is considered one of the main characteristics of this style, a feature that was pioneered by Belgian producers and set this style apart from previous styles of house and techno, paving the way for the emergence of

and

Music journalist Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on music ...

has written detailed accounts on Belgian hardcore techno, covering bands like

Second Phase The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds each ...

and

. Many iconic synth sounds or "stabs" of the early rave scene were popularized by these and other producers during the early 1990s, like the "mentasm" or "hoover" and the "Anasthasia" stabs. Brooklyn's DJ-producer Joey Beltram musical contribution to the Belgian label

R&S Records R&S Records is an independent record label founded in 1983 in Ghent, Belgium. R&S represents the initials of Renaat Vandepapeliere and Sabine Maes, the couple that created the label. R&S Records has had several subsidiaries, most notably Apollo Re ...

was a cornerstone of the iconic Belgian rave sounds and anthems that emerged in this period. These synth sounds and other sound-effects like alarms, sirens and church bells were widely used in the genre, creating a sense of emergency and insurgency through music. Many of the iconic rave sounds that emerged initially within Belgian hardcore, would later be adopted by genres like

jungle A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century. Etymology The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaṅ ...

darkcore Darkcore (also referred to as darkside hardcore) is a genre of electronic dance music, considered to be a subgenre of breakbeat hardcore, which came out from the UK rave scene of the early 1990s; this genre in particular emerged from late 1992 ...

techstep Techstep is a dark subgenre of drum and bass that was created in the mid-1990s. Style It is characterized by a dark, sci-fi mood, near-exclusive use of synthesised or sampled sound sources, 2-step kicks and snares and influences from industrial ...

hard house UK hard house or simply hard house is a style of electronic dance music that emerged in the early 1990s and is synonymous with its association to the Trade club and the associated DJs there that created the style. It often features a speedy te ...

hard NRG Hard NRG, NRG, nu-NRG, filthy hard house, or more recently just filth, is an electronic dance music genre similar in structure (with regard to sequencing and programming) to UK hard house. The main difference is in the musical/thematic content ...

hardstyle Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre that emerged in the late 1990s, with origins in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Hardstyle mixes influences from techno, new beat and hardcore. Early hardstyle was typically written at 140 BPM (''beat ...

and

fidget house Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 130 beats per minute. The term has been used to describe the music of many ''DJ Mag'' Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Steve Aoki ...

https://www.discogs.com/ru/release/1637160-Bryan-Cox-Crux-Da-House Jaimie Fanatic – Old School Is My School, Trash Fashion– Rave Dave (Bryan Cox & Le Nimh Remix)

Notable artists

Notable record labels

External links

* Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music - "Rave" timelin

* VICE - "The Untold Story of Joey Beltram, the Techno Titan Behind the 90s' Most Iconic Rave Anthem

References

{{Electronica Electronic dance music genres 20th-century music genres Belgian styles of music Hardcore music genres Rave 1990s in music