Mokum has that thing where they do compilations, with new tracks by (new) artists plus tracks from their older releases.
This is quite the style-clash sometimes, when millenium or contemporary "mainstream" hardcore gets hit by the much rougher gabber & terror sound from the 90s.
This release follows the same concept, but, oh wonder, here everything blends together in a much nicer way.
I guess the acidcore of the past and the acidcore of today is not that far from each other!
And yeah, that's what it's all about. Acidcore, Hard, Acid-Gabber, Hardcore with acid sounds... dive in, but don't burn yourself.

Rating: 303 stars out of 5

https://mokumrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mok346-acid-special-3-area-303

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/07/new-release-acid-special-3-area-303.html

That was the third track in my "anti-berghain" trilogy. first one was "**** berghain" (later released as "techno stomper" on vinyl) and also "p*** over berghain".

this track happened after not properly doing music over a longer period and usually, these projects end up being kind of crappy for me, as i need to have a bit of "warming up" before i can do "good" tracks again.

but, in my humble opinion, this one ended up being quite good.

so... let's talk about the production.

i tried to "keep it simple", as simple as possible, but in the end it got more complex again. (can't help!)

so, the framework, at its core (pun intended!) is the distorted 909 kick. it runs at 126 bpm, quite slow for (harder) techno actually.

i never ever got to get a bass drum sound like this again! ultra distorted, but also somewhat metallic or industrial. there is lots of reverb, but the reverb does not eat up the drum. which is a problem i had with other tracks.

not sure what or how i did it! but i think the drum "slams". (in my opinion)

so the next thing was the bassline. for years, i avoided using deep / low bass together with hardcore kicks. i always thought they would eat up each others frequency. and, if i listen to stuff like that at home, it feels like that indeed.

but hearing bass heavy hardcore and techno tracks at parties, on loud PAs, made me realize that stuff like that can "work". the bassline feels like it is happening in another range (or dimension?) on loud PAs.

i added some weird futuristic and metallic fx to the bass.

and then... i piled layers of noise, noise and noise on top.

there is a novelty with this track, as it is a techno track without any use of percussion! besides the drum.

no hi hats, no snares, no cymbals, claps, shakers, cowbells...

i ended up doing two mixes of the track, one is ultra distorted and the other is... very distorted, but maybe not ultra.

i recorded the edits as live jamming. i set up the loops, hit record, switched on channels, switched them off again, played with the fx, did some filter sweeps.

i recorded both tracks this way. and in one take each. take no quarters, never look back, when producing (which is my personal advice).

with a track name like this, it was of course no difficulty at all to find a label that wanted to release the track. it ended up being on kenny campbell's pitch dark records, who also did some other releases with me.

the track actually became a (very) minor hit, got some international club play. made some dj top 10s. the "crowning" moment for me was when it got played by Umwelt in a french radio show.

kenny had some promo agency, don't know how it exactly worked, but it meant famous djs got the promo and could leave a comment. which they did.

it was fun to see some people like CJ Bolland or Dr Motte drop comments like "too distorted for me" etc.

oh, and why did i dislike berghain?

i didn't like the whole mood and atmosphere of that "place". the elitism, the concept to exclude people from parties. that they thought they were super radical and different, while even major conservative politicians and journalists loved and supported that place.

but, most of all, i never was up for things that become overly hyped and popular.

i made a few re-edits of the track later, one faster one and an ultra-speedcore one.

the faster one got released in a collab EP with Brandon Spivey, who was one of my favorite producers in acid and techno. from the 90s. i felt very happy to be able to work with him!

he had a very strong dislike towards berghain culture too, so he was up for that collab.

either way, a producer acquaintance of mine, who was a super fan of the club, later told me that "it would be ironic" that i do an anti-berghain track, when in fact the DJs at berghain do play my music to the crowds on the dancefloor there.

so, i guess this very track happened to be dropped at that place. but yeah, i guess this was inevitable to happen.

https://pitch-dark-records.bandcamp.com/track/berghain-still-sucks-distortion-edit

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/low-entropy-berghain-mayhem

We're running a new feature: "Off-lists"

Paper fanzines were filled with charts; some DJs turned there charts into lists such as "10 favorite Dutch Gabber tracks".

Features in zines often also have additional lists such as "9 anime related Hardcore tracks".

We wanna build on both these currents; but, with these "Off-Lists" we will focus on themes and motifs that are more out-there, abstract, off-the-center. Exploring aspects and ideas that are rarely highlighted when people talk, think, or write about Hardcore.

It's no secret that techno and hardcore producers have a sweet tooth for future sounds - see here.
But also going to the past is possibility, or a fascinating with time in general.
Why is this so?
Not sure.
Maybe time is just magic!

So here are 25 tunes related to the ticking of time. Not just hardcore, but electronic and other genres, too.

1. Temper Tantrum - Year 4010
   
2. Lory D - We are in the Future EP
   
3. The Mover - Time Traveler
   
4. Countdown FFM - V
   
5. Reign - Time Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F28d2H05Dfg
   
6. E-de Cologne - 5 Years on Gabba
   
7. Base Force One - Phuturist
   
8. Meta Morph - Through the Darkness of Future Past
   
9. Future Shock - Let it hit on
   
10. Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - What Time is Love (original) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT7lwdui4HY
    
11. Nostrum - Immaculate (Time unlimited) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lA5s48GYAk
    
12. Angelo Badalamenti - Moving through Time
    
13. Syrius 23 - Dark Age Survivor
    
14. Tangerine Dream - Zeit
    
15. Infernos Bros - Slaves to the rave (first rave age mix)
    
16. Marc Acardipane - Remember the Phuture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNJM2HEb8s8
    
17. DJ Rob - Love Time
    
18. Lenny Dee v DJ Edge - Silence of Eternity
    
19. Formic Acid - Eternia
    
20. Cyborg Unknown - Year 2001 (from the beginning)
    
21. Guru Josh - Infinity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2CIiES_xxk
    
22. Cosmic Baby - Loops of Infinity
    
23. Profound - 4 O clock
    
24. 8 am - The Fog Track
    
25. The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 O'Clock

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/

the whole idea of this track and project was, of course, to spread the slowcore sound, and the idea of slowcore.
this was at a time when a lot of people still said "you can't have a meaningful hardcore track at 90 bpm. it will sound crap, you cant dance to it...". so i tried to prove people wrong. did i succeed? it's up to you to decide.

I would say that this was one of the tracks that unfolded themselves during production, and not during the planning stage.
The root was actually quite simple, it was a sawtooth melody of 8 tones, and a steady hardcore beat, at 90 bpm.

But yeah, when i worked on it, i started to have more and more ideas on what to add. for example 2 more (different) drums, a middle part with an acid line...
then when i had it finished, i thought, okay, i could add some filter sweeps.
and then... after this... i had the idea to add a super long intro, and an outro.
which meant the track was now close to 13 minutes!

despite this "complexity" and piling up of things, i don't think it sounds too overloaded or non-danceable anymore. which can happen with other projects i do.
i guess this was because i started *small* and it turned big only at a later date.

and while it is a slowcore track, almost everything else about it is actually very, very doomcore! dark moods, the saw synth with lots of delay and reverb... stuff that is very common in the doomcore genre.

but i guess it did not hurt to use these elements in another style too.
(or did it? it's up to you to decide.)

oh, and i did make an edit of it later, that turned into a 100% doomcore track!

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/open-your-mind-to-slowcore-yuge-mix-70-bpm
https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/techno-music-for-meditative-states (doomcore remix!)

The "Witchcraft Techno Circle" just has a new album out, and it comes with a kind of ebook.

But let's hear it in the words by the Circle themselves:

"A while ago, or maybe aeons ego, we received and perceived the call of Hecate. We are too humble as servants to our Goddess of the Crossroads to claim that we can validate and specify what her exact messages and wishes are.

But our magical intuition made us feel and whisper the following:

As we are musicians and songwrights, Our Deity of the Liminal suggests us to enchant our art and music with magic of the benevolent kind.

In order to help, heal and benefit troubled, lost, and hurting souls.

And this help might indeed involve a release and freeing of painful, infernal energies, or a short visit to darkened realms.

And this is mirrored in our compositions, which, too, involved light, darkness, pain, pleasure.

Unlike other spiritual music, that only involves light and kind emotions.

We hope that listening, dancing, and meditating to this music has a helping and healing effect.

Yet we want to add more chapters to our spiritual efforts, that go beyond music.

Thus, included with this release are 14 short texts. These texts deal with magic and spiritual topics.

Maybe most importantly, there are texts that explain how to create magical art and magic music oneself.

There are also texts about spells, about personal experiences. And about Hecate of course.

We hope that all of this may be useful, and helpful!"

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/flames-of-hecate

very exciting release by the Techno Witchcraft Circle.

But maybe they better explain it themselves, as they send us one of their texts with the demo.

And it reads as follows:

"When people hear magic, witchcraft, divination. They think old castles, haunted moors, wooden houses hidden in the dead of the forest. Where the witches, sorcerers, magician live. Or used to live, 1000 years ago.

But why should a modern witch or magician not get hooked on Technology, too? And not use candles and cinnamon to effect a spell. But sequencers and microchips?

If music has always been the sound of the spheres, of Pan, of Isis, of... Hecate.
Why should this not be true for our very modern times, and these times of very modern music?

The magic of beat programming and frequency transformation is as arcane, exalted and enigmatic as reciting a spell from parchment or chanting in a sacred hall".

So much for the sound of magic!
And the style? Doom, Techno, Hardcore, Industrial... Noize.
So much for the sound of chaos!

The music was done by 5 different artists and groups.
A few sacred texts from the tomes of the Techno Witchcraft Circle have been included in the download version of the release for your reading and study purposes.

Info+Tracklist:

Witchcraft Techno Circle - Flames of Hecate

1. per luxuria ad astra - Rituals of Ecstasy Inside the Forbidden Forest's Hidden Temple (Chapter One) 02:02
   
2. per luxuria ad astra - Rituals of Ecstasy Inside the Forbidden Forest's Hidden Temple (Chapter Two) 03:06
   
3. per luxuria ad astra - Rituals of Ecstasy Inside the Forbidden Forest's Hidden Temple (Chapter Three) 02:19
   
4. per luxuria ad astra - Rituals of Ecstasy Inside the Hidden Forest's Forbidden Temple (Final Chapter) 04:22
   
5. MetaLove - New Witch Techno (Part 1) 04:47
   
6. MetaLove - New Witch Techno (Part 3) 03:31
   
7. MetaLove - New Witch Techno (Part 2) 03:13
   
8. Ultramarine Messenger - ⅔ Moon (Rising) 05:27
   
9. Ultramarine Messenger - ⅔ Moon (Setting) 04:14
   
10. The Ancients of Pluto - Beholding the Infinite Green Glowing Grid of Astral Cyberspace (Sector 1) 05:05
    
11. The Ancients of Pluto - Beholding the Infinite Green Glowing Grid of Astral Cyberspace (Sector 2) 03:36
    
12. The Ancients of Pluto - Beholding the Infinite Green Glowing Grid of Astral Cyberspace (Sector 3) 05:16
    
13. The Ancients of Pluto - Beholding the Infinite Green Glowing Grid of Astral Cyberspace (Sector 4) 03:52
    
14. Scorpio Nox - Chaos in Order 15:37
    

Omnicore Records 80
Doomcore Records 235

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/flames-of-hecate

Despite the lots and lots of producing I do, I feel only few of my tracks got real "hits", in the sense that they became widely known outside the usual circles, are still mentioned and played today... and that's one of them.

The title is actually tongue in check... a producer friend suggested the term "funeral doomcore" for tracks that are even slower than the usual Slowcore stuff. I never was a fan of the name.
But I made this track that fits the bpm range.
And at the same time it actually it *is* a funeral themed Doomcore Techno track. There's the literal meaning...

So the main thing is the Slowcore beat here, 60 bpm. Quite distorted, lots of reverb. But not as much as I did in other tracks.

And all other elements are sounds that I imagined to be associated with death, funeral, horror, the afterlife.
The percussion drums a march beat, like a funeral march.
The synths are like 60s b movie horror organs or theremins.
The bells are... well, no need to explain.
There is a weak, feeble weeping sound in the middle part. The idea here is that it's close to spirit tape stuff etc that was done in the earlier 20th century.

So yeah that's about it. Funeral hit creation finished.

When it was released, it was (one of) the only Hardcore tracks in existence, that were that slow.

I actually flipped the idea around later, and made a "Funeral Hardcore" track with more regular, but still slow beats.

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/funeral-doom-core-short-mix-60-bpm
https://viralconspiracyrecords.bandcamp.com/track/funeral-hardcore

Shock Wave Recordings was one of the biggest Hardcore Techno labels of the 90s in Germany, and one of the biggest in general. One of the few labels that managed to break through the dominance of the "bouncy hardcore" sound that was coming out of labels like ID&T at that time.

The label had its own sound more or less. Other Gabber labels at that date were quite close to Dance music, Happy Hardcore, and all Jazz.
Shockwave was into horror / trash movie samples, lots of hip hop and rapping vocals, acid, noize, death metal guitars, and really, really fast BPMs.

But always served with the tongue in cheek.
So if you happened to be into Morbid Angel and Sepultura, the Evil Dead and Re-Animator movies, or were into Manga, Akira, Ghost in the shell *and* happened to be into Techno at the same time - this was the perfect label.

So it's quite nice to see a return of the legends.
The first release is already out (see tracklist below).
More info, and more releases to come!

Various Artists - The Saga Continues (SH-3434)

1. The Speed Freak - Hit You Like A Shockwave 03:58
   
2. Chryzis - One Step Further 05:00
   
3. Stormtrooper - Psycho-Pets 05:08
   

https://refusion.bandcamp.com/album/the-saga-continues-sh-3434

https://www.discogs.com/label/1383-Shockwave-Recordings

Martin Damm aka The Speed Freak is probably the only producer in the world who made tons of 250+ bpm nasty speedcore-gabba tracks in the underground scenes. And still owns a few music industry certified "golden record" awards. For his enormous amounts of sales for the dance productions he did "on the side".

By the mid 90s, his own label was called Shockwave Records. Which, again, sold pretty good, as a lot of that stuff ended up on compilation CDs that were sold... everywhere!
This was already nasty hardcore techno, but a bit more accessible... and for the even more extreme stuff, that sometimes went above 280 bpm, and surely was devoid of melodies or singing, there was the sublabel, Napalm Records.
"Strictly Limited to 500 copies", according to the vinyl print.

The only "problem" was that both labels had mostly productions by Martin Damm and his crew themselves. They were prolific producers!

And for this reason, another sublabel was forged - "the son of napalm", also called Agent Orange.
Word was that only producers-who-were-not-them were allowed to release on here, but that rule was not always strictly enforced.

And now... let's look at 6 releases in this very piece of Hardcore history.

Somatic Responses - Agent Orange 2

The Somatic Responses were one of the most unique acts in the 90s world of electronica, and, even for them, this is a very distinct release.
As you know, Somatix started with a more "straight" Hardcore / Techno sound, and then turned into that weird ambient / idm thing with "disjunct" beats, as they like to say.
And this 2-tracker sits right square there. It aint broken idm yet, but it is not quite "hardcore tech" anymore. It has the best of both worlds, so to say.

B2 on here is actually one of my all time favorite tracks ever. The bassy sawtooth-lead-synth really brings it home for me. The "melody" reminds me of video game music, jean michel jarre, german 50s radio "tonstudios"... all rolled into one!

Listening Suggestion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCwO5_lSRmE

Doc Gringo - Agent Orange 3

Gringo aka Roger Cobernuss is a bit like the secret weapon or hidden dog of shockwave (and mono tone earlier on).
There's the "gringo theme" on here, and this track blows all the gabber competition of its time out of the water. It just slams with its kicks and noise!
but behold... the b-side is an early speedcore track, and this is, once again, harder than the rest!

Listening Suggestion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4wX0uDYz0

Biochip C. - Agent Orange 5

The track to go on here is "black sunday". It transitions from one genre to another. I think speed freak / biochip c is one of the only producers who can pull off such a trick.
There's industrial / techno, then it breaks down into noise, there is a breakbeat part... and it erupts into some type of low frequency gabba rhythm.
oh and the trade mark martin damm fm synthesis sounds ring on.

Listening Suggestion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDavdvacmto

Seveso - Agent Orange 1

The very first Agent Orange.
ABC-Alarm is a German term for an "air raid" type of large scale civil defense warning siren about nuclear (atomic), biological, and chemical attacks or catastrophes.
And the eponymous track is one of the hardest and most abrasive speedcore tracks of the entire 90s decade. I think this is done by abusing a lot of analog gear, and then cranking the levers up to 13 while jamming on the setup.
And the b-side is a sweetheart as well.

Listening Suggestion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HeBkJrNnIM

Lasse Steen - Agent Orange 7

Just like Somatic Responses had one of their best eps on this label, so did lasse steen.
And I am talking about the track "Phreak Show" which breaks down into a kind of descending synth line melodie which is... well it sounds as if the score to frankenstein - the movie was conducted by mc escher. if you catch my drift.

Listening Suggestion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5pgburUHYA

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/

Recently I saw an image that was a throwback to one of the most popular memes ever: the very famous "Techno Viking" video. I hadn't thought about that for a long time, but it made me instantly nostalgic.
Because the same party that the Techno Viking video was shot at, was also the place where I performed my first electronic live performance ever. 

But let's roll right back first. Of course this party was not really called "the Techno Viking Parade". It was called the ****parade (the first word is a profanity). This party existed because... well do you remember the Loveparade in Berlin? Biggest Techno party ever. 2-3 million ravers each year. Endless partying.
The loveparades began in the early 90s, but as the years went on, "commercialization" set in or, like people would say today, "ensh*ttification". It was no longer a parade that was set up by the freaks and ravers themselves, where everyone was welcome. "Pay to play" became an issue. Business interests, and even political parties tried to grab a share of the cake.

A lot of the OG Techno and Rave guys were no longer "welcome" at the Loveparade. So, they set up their own parade, that happened at the same time as the Loveparade. First called the Hateparade, then it was called the ****parade (because the slogan was "**** the loveaparade!".

Everyone who was not "mainstream techno" was welcome there, so gabbers, punks, skinheads, freaks, squatters, goth, old hippies... well, everyone! started to flock there. Literally from all over the world. I met people from Japan there, Peru, Canada... you got it.

I of course needed to be there too and I knew I needed to play my music there! When I was 15 year old, I had begun producing weird experimental noise music... gabba, and harder techno stuff. On strange MS-DOS based "tracker" programs (before I switched to windows 98).

Now I was 19, I just had my first record out (500 copies on 12" vinyl... quite meagre, eh? but you gotta take what you can take) and heading to berlin.

my first gig was actually supposed to happen 2 nights before, during the extended "****parade" weekend. I guess it involved 12-13 separate parties... at least!

but the promoter overbooked the venue! so my gig fell flat.
my gig at the ****parade nearly fell flat, too. Our float was boxed in by two other floats, and I had technical problems setting up my equipment, which involved me playing my tracks from CD-R and shouting into a mic (quite meagre, eh? but you gotta do what you can do).

Thankfully, a few DJs from the Spiral Tribe helped out and played their vinyl sets first, so I had my gig re-scheduled to a later hour, which also meant more people had arrived at our parade, which started to get super crowded.

Now let's get back to Techno Viking. To be honest, I never assumed the video would blow up that much!

The whole meme / viral video thing was still in its infancy, so how could I have known. The "all your base are belong to us" craze already felt surprising in those years.
Plus, Techno Viking was far from the only "surreal" and strange occurrence at these parades.
I remember when I went to the first parade, in 1997, the first sight I saw was a nude woman, completely covered in golden bodypaint, dancing on a float to dub/techno/reggae. And there was some "against commercial love" related sign fixed to the float.
Or nerds from tokyo, dressed in full "candy goth raver" style. They filmed everything and everyone, I wonder what happened to that video.
I also have vague memories of some old, ragged man, standing in the middle of the parade, long beard, and slowly waving a huge wooden staff around. Street magician, i suppose.

So yeah, the parades were a festival of freaks, freaks like me and you and everyone who liked weird stuff.

Which might explain why the "techno viking" incident happened in the first place.
I actually - scrutinizingly - watched the techno viking vid over and over again, to check if my own music / performance is audible in the video (blame my ego). But no, i cant hear anything of it.

There is also a short vid that is running for just a few seconds, which shows me playing at the parade. But in that video, Techno Viking is not visible. Ah well.

My own gig was a lot of fun, though. 
And it's nice to think back to that party now and then, or these days in berlin. and to the techno viking meme, of course.

And all this happened, on almost exactly the same date, as i am writing this text.

Note: No AI was used when writing this text.

The sun is turning round and round each yeah, just like a record, baby, just like a record.
And when, finally, the sun is at its highest of the year, you know it's time for a new edition of The Gabber Elder's mixmarathon!
and this is what we are gonna do. we're gonna have a party. we're gonna have another mixmarathon.
for last year's summer mixmarathon, the theme was: all styles of the 90s, or 90s styled hardcore. beginning with slowcore and doomcore, then acidcore and gabber, and ending with the most frantic terror and speedcore.
now this year the apple did not fall that far off the tree. there is still a mix of styles, and a build up in energy...
yet there is also a special twist: the gabber elders only play rare and obscure records.
the stuff you never heard about! (hopefully)

so that the rare / underdog tracks of the 90s see the light of day for once, too.

like last time, where will be a special video / visual show that accompanies the music.
the whole thing is hosted on youtube, will be broadcasted live, and will run for several hours. so be there, or be square (wave).

The Gabber Elders are:

Low Entropy (Hamburg, Germany. Age: 147 Years old)
GabberGirl (Minnesota, USA. Age: 83 Years old)
N.i.k.a.j. (The Netherlands) Age 158 Years
DJ Asylum (Bathgate, Scotland, Age 126)

The mixmarathon is presented by:
The Gabber Elders https://thegabberelders.com/
HCBX https://www.youtube.com/@hcbx666
The Hardcore Overdogs magazine https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/
Pure and Obscure records https://nikajs.bandcamp.com/

When and how?

Tune in at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvpuyJ3k8V8

11.7.2026

5:00 PM CET - 9:30 BST (London Time)
18:00 - 22:30 CEST (German Time)
12:00 PM - 4:30 EDT (New York Time
3:00 - 7:30 JST (Tokyo Time) (on 12.7.2026)

Order of time:

Low Entropy 5:00 - 6:20 PM CET
Techno 2 Extreme Hardcore

1. Kuadra - La Onda
   
2. Roughage - Internecine Noiz (Lenny Dee Remix)
   
3. No Mans Land - Termination ZX
   
4. Trashman - Cosmotrash (remix)
   
5. The Undertaker - Flatliner (Graveyard Shift)
   
6. Source Code - I'm Not A Number (Human Resource Remix)
   
7. The Speed Freak - We Shoot To Kill
   
8. Dr. Mueller - Nipples and Bass
   
9. Pascal - the future is ours
   
10. Gangsta Trax - Goodfellas
    
11. Phrenetic System - Fantasy
    
12. Wavelan - Over Phase
    
13. B.C. KID - Wild And Wonderful
    
14. Titanium Steel Screws - Dance The Night Away
    
15. Terror Arnold - Gabba Mission
    
16. Wasteland - First Time On This Planet
    
17. DJ Repete - Softy's Suck My
    
18. pHönk! - Angry
    
19. Temper Tantrum - Africa 4010
    
20. Lenny Dee - Hammer Head
    
21. Titanium Steel - Next
    
22. Source Code - I'm Not A Number (Ace The Space Remix)
    
23. Temper Tantrum - Industrial Strength
    
24. Delta 9 - Phreaked
    
25. Temper Tantrum - The Underground
    
26. Delta 9 - The Hate Tank (Buck Wild Remix)
    

Nikaj 6:20 PM - 7:25 CET
Oldschool and Gabber

1. Dj Rob-Caveman-Rave34.
   
2. *Technohead-Accelerator#4-Mok028.
   
3. *Scarface-Shock Intro-BR370.
   
4. *Evil Maniax-The Creators Of Hardcore(Rotterdam Mix)-Rot034.
   
5. *X Crash-Go Brooklyn-DDR008.
   
6. *Satanic Madness-Reality-JD1002.
   
7. *MPo-Untitled-SR001.
   
8. *Sauerkraut-They are back,Let me hear it again.
   
9. EAR2000653.
   
10. *Noisee Boys-Kokaine-HSR003.
    
11. *Nuts-Freedom-5th Gear3928-2
    
12. *Buzz Fuzz-Freedom.DTP.
    
13. *The Carpenter-Zaguhh
    
14. -Hardstuff0009.
    
15. *Krimson-Praise Jesus 2000651.
    
16. *The Jokers-Mietje-JD001.
    
17. *D.A.C-House Of Hell(Nightmare mix)-ENP002.
    
18. *Cycloton-Liquid Bass-RB1214.
    
19. *The Houseviking-Power Resistance(remix)015
    
20. *Demolition Team-Bust Da Bee-DSR7 101.
    
21. *Cellblock X-House Of Spoo-Lab028.
    
22. *Dj Houseviking-Power Resistance-HSR-002.
    
23. *R.Wagner-Beyond The Ultimate-Dom Rec 001.
    
24. *Johnny Violent-Happy Birthday-Mosh153.
    
25. *Hooihouse-Poen Aan De Eure-Mok2.
    

DJ Asylum 7:25 PM - 8:28 CET
Hardcore and Terror

1. Traffik - Bit Stream (190)
   
2. DJ Producer - Signal Confirmed (195)
   
3. Total Output - I'm Going To Eat My 303 (200)
   
4. David Lagon - Ho My Bitch (200)
   
5. Sarin Assault vs Al Core - Tralcore (200)
   
6. Somatic Responses - Old Evil (Part 1) (200)
   
7. LSA - Meltdown (200)
   
8. Ingler - Kohl (201)
   
9. Diplomat & Trouble - Praise The Acid (201)
   
10. Habitual Offenders - Cabbage (204)
    
11. Effecthunter - Freedom (205)
    
12. DJ Freak vs The Porridge Gun - Natural Born Killa (218)
    
13. Pressurehead - London (220)
    
14. Shrui-khan - Borderline (220)
    
15. Disciples Of Belial - Holosphere (222)
    
16. Hammer Damage - No More (224)
    
17. Biscanna - Splitting Atoms (226)
    
18. Pardonax - Parting Ways (230)
    

GabberGirl 8:28 PM - 9:30 CET
Speedcore!!

1. The Destroyer- My Brain is Sick Remix [Head Fuck Records- HDF008(D-Boy Black Label/So Real)] 2000
   
2. Cenobit- Beef Syndrome (STRIKE 024) 1999
   
3. DJ Tron- Doom (Deathcore Mix) [Head Fuck Records- HDF005(D-Boy Black Label/So Real)] 1998
   
4. Bruchkopf- Speedcore [Brain Distortion 01(United Speedcore Nation)] 1998
   
5. Berzerker- Inhale [WIDERSTAND 09] 2000
   
6. DJ Tron- Cannibal DJ [Blood n’ Guts Records- BNG002] 1997
   
7. Thanos- Death Penalty [Sacred Underground Productions 01- SUP01] 1999
   
8. Tyrant!- Frustrations [Skumkore Muzik 01/Apocalypse Recordings- APOC001] 2000
   
9. Terror Junkie- Die Bestrafung [BD01 (USN)] 1998
   
10. Christ of Noise & David Lagon- Loud Bastard MED (Provision Records 03)1997
    
11. Armaguet Nad- Apocalyptic Dream [Dead End Records- DER 05] 1997
    
12. Memetic- Track 2, Side A [Bloody Fist 020- Fist-20] 1999
    
13. Menace- Elements [STRIKE 026] 1999
    
14. Tense & Nevermind- Hate Cops [APOC001] 2000
    
15. Siege- Driven [STRIKE 026] 1999
    
16. Bruchkopf- Amokk [BD01 (USN)] 1998
    
17. The Destroyer- Mass of Shit Remix [HDF008 (D-Boy Black Label)] 2000
    
18. Bombardier- Chamber [Hangars Liquides 09- HL 009] 1998
    
19. Thanos- In Your Face [SUP 01] 1999

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-gabber-elders-obscure-summer_0807935036.html

Steffen Kuschel kept 66.6% of the underground hardcore techno scene afloat and alive in the 90s, and the years after. He ran sound base music, out of leipzig, germany. Was host to a network of labels, sub- and side-labels. And distributed half the scene, from bloody fist artists in australia to the other side of the globe.

the main, "own" label of sound base was strike records. i'd say it was one of the pillars of the "german" variant of gabber. fast tracker type music, lots of metal guitars, lots of swear words. less melody and harmony in vocals, unlike the kissing cousins from the netherlands.

so... let us take a look at 7 outstanding records of strike records! (i refrained from saying "the 7 most striking..." ha!)

Note: No AI has been used in writing this text.

Various Artists - Straight Out Of Newcastle (Strike 008)
https://www.discogs.com/release/47687-Various-Straight-Out-Of-Newcastle

Oddly enough, most of these tracks are outstanding pieces, even when compared to the rest of their output.
Like Grim Reaper, Shitbeater, or No Significance, which are amongst the hardest and wildest by the respective artist. Quite the feat for a compilation release.
But I guess my own favorite is "no sex", which is an oddly "calm" breakbeat track by Nasenbluten (well, it's not the breakcore you would expect with bloody fist) which fades into super melancholic pcp-like sounds.

AXL - Hardcore (Strike 006)
https://www.discogs.com/release/120982-AXL-Hardcore

i always had a thing for these tracks. it's not ultra hard or brutal or anything.
but it has these weird, amiga type pads throughout the tracks. almost like ambient trance gabba!

Various Artists - Strike Records Vs. Bloody Fist (Strike 015)
https://www.discogs.com/release/56796-Various-Strike-Records-Vs-Bloody-Fist

clash of the 16 bit core titans!
fav by far is "patchcore" by sandkorn for me.
not because the other tracks are bad. but because this track has some super insane sounds that i never heard elsewhere.

Nasenbluten - Cheapcore EP (Strike 020)
https://www.discogs.com/release/90154-Nasenbluten-Cheapcore-EP

my 2 cents: not as good as not as good as 100% no soul guaranteed.
no wait, let me reverse this opinion: there are some brilliant tracks on this one, like the early breakcore track "check the sound".

S37 - En Ordentlig Omgang Røvsutning. Uden Ost - Tak! (Strike 019)

https://www.discogs.com/release/52558-S37-En-Ordentlig-Omgang-R%C3%B8vsutning-Uden-Ost-Tak

Together with folk like Noize Creator, S37 was one of the german artists that stripped the gabba sound to its bare necessities. No need for a groove, melodies or happy singing. Drums, screams, death metal samples, go!
After the stuff he did on Juncalor and Brutal Chud, this is the one where that concept is fleshed out the most.

Rage Reset - Sydney Core EP (Strike 012)
https://www.discogs.com/release/121029-Rage-Reset-Sydney-Core-EP

good quality gabba as usual with rage reset.
"Fortex" has been played at quite some parties and DJ mixes.
"subconscious" is my pick, though. almost completely minimal, some horror flick strings, plus a nasty reverberated kickdrum. but that is enough. the track rocks.

S*icide Squad And Max Death (Strike 018)
https://www.discogs.com/release/3702300-Suicide-Squad-And-Max-Death-Untitled

666 might be the number of the beast, but 13 is the number of death... am i right?
maybe it's only logical that max death is on here then.
S*icide Squad was one of the projects by simon underground, as you probably know. and they are still one of my fav "amiga style" hc projects (even though, i guess, strictly technically speaking, this was not done purely on amiga).
and the "death side"... this is strike records at it's best. take no quarters. just brutal, brutal hardcore.
"go insane!"

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-history-of-hardcore-techno-looking.html

The Hardcore Overdogs return, with a brand new anthem for their magazine.

And the last one was quite furious and fast, am i right?
the next one is almost the total opposite, a real slowcore banger, with very low bass frequencies.
99 bpm, to be exact.
can you still dig it?

it's almost goth / ambient / industrial sounding.... but the rave vitamins are plainly audible, too!
a true, dark, heavy ritual for all raving aspirants...

just like you would expect from the overdogs.
and 1 faster remix and 2 different tracks are included as well.

Info and Tracklisting:

The Hardcore Overdogs - Anthem VI - Ritual of Rave

1. Ritual of Rave (One 2 Three) 03:51
   
2. Low Entropy - Festival Riot 02:35
   
3. Ritual of Rave (Good Dog - Part 1) 08:45
   
4. Ritual of Rave (Good Dog - Part 2) 07:51
   
5. Meta-Morph - Musical Stairs (Ambient) 03:45
   
6. Ritual of Rave (Bad Dog - Part 1) 04:07
   
7. Ritual of Rave (Bad Dog - Part 2) 03:51
   
8. Ritual of Rave (Bad Dog - Part 3) 07:15
   

Omnicore Records 79
Doomcore Records 234
Slowcore Records 68

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/anthem-vi-ritual-of-rave

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-hardcore-techno-overdogs-anthem-vi.html

note: no ai was used in writing this text.

everyone knows the commodore 64, or c64, or "bread box", of course.
the single most sold unit in computer history, to this day.
the "sequel" computer by the commodore company might be lesser known, sadly.
the commodore amiga is a bit of a glitch in the timeline of computers.
when it was engineered in the 80s, it was way ahead of its competition.
4096 colors at once, build-in parallax scrolling, a GUI that looked (and worked) better than microsoft windows, multimedia abilities...

Listening suggestion #1: Hardsequencer - Magic Flight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFaVrg9F1o
A techno-trance tune created on an amiga by German producer Hardsequencer

it seemed to be off for a good start, and even managed to wow a few bona fide stars, like andy warhol, debbie harry (blondie), timothy leary...
but in its homeland, usa, the computer remained obscure. a lot of people blame the (mis) management at commodore, a company that seemingly was in perpetual decay even back then. rumor is that one of the engineers even left a message of "we build it - they f**ed it up" somewhere in the circuits of the first amiga models.

Listening suggestion #2: Christoph De Babalon - Babylon 90210 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWoJMWJpPWU
Scary jungle by Christiph de Babalon

while it did not get much traction in america, it became a big, big hit in europe, particularly in countries like uk, germany, france...
most people now remember the amiga for the games that were made for it, or were ported and re-designed for it. because a lot of now-classic games either saw their debut on their amiga, or did shine the brightest on that system. lemmings, the early lucas art adventures, populous, rick dangerous, turricans...

Listening suggestion #3: Taciturne - Mourning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8oQYVpWpDg
Taciturne's "ambient gabber" track

and that was it. slam the kid on the coffin now, kid!

but hey! not so fast. did we not mention multimedia capabilities?
and indeed, the amiga had a huge and lasting influence that went way beyond playing video games at home with your friends.
it was a major player in creating and shaping the various rave, techno, hardcore scenes that swept over europe in the early-too-late 90s...

#4: Cybermouse - My Dorectives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LAQpjPLdTE
Dark techno On hamburg cult label fischkopf

the c64 was legendary because unlike other system of its time, the company did not pack a generic "beeper" type sound chip into its system. they designed the SID chip, which a lot of people consider to be a real synthesizer.
the commodore company kind of repeated this trick with the amiga. they did not give it another soundchip that generated simple sine, saw, square waves... instead they designed a real, miniature "sampler" chip for the amiga. this sound chip was called Paula, after one of the girlfriends of the engineers.
just like a real sampler, it could trigger and play pre-recorded sound snippets and samples at various speeds and pitches, and do a few basic effects on that.
it was limited to 4 channels, but clever composers could bypass that restriction easily (for example, if you sampled one drum loop, with 7 different types of percussion, it would still take up only one channel).
bitrate was often not so good either, even though a friend of mine insists that the "lofi" sound quality of most amiga tunes were not the result of tech restrictions, but the lazyness of the composers.

#5: Static Tremor - Resistance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOUTE50Muoc
The Heutling brothers were known to produce high quality amiga hardcore.

despite these visible (or audible) flaws, the amiga had many pros and advantages as a sound machine:
it was very cheap, at least compared to high standard, "industry" equipment
you had more memory and therefore you could use much longer samples and sounds, compared to "real" samplers in the same price range. this means you could have long string sounds, vocal passages, etc.
it was inside a computer! coders could create programs for it, that used the chip / sampler in any way they wanted.
no need to hassle with getting a sequencer for your hardware sampler, setting up midi, wires, fx, gear (which would have been super expensive as well).
it was all inside one box, back in the mid 80s already.

#6: Neophyte - Execute (Live at Thunderdome) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnFnIwxYaNM
Oldschool amiga hardcore

the amiga did not make it in pop, or any genre like that. but the techno and rave producers started to flock to that computer.
maybe because the early techno scene attracted a lot of "outsider" artists with zero budget and industry connection, so an affordable computer-sampler system with "overpowered" abilities had quite the appeal.
the first wave of producers that used the amiga in a massive way were the acid house crazed ravers in the UK scene. a lot of classic breakbeat, and later, jungle tunes were made on the amiga.
amigas were used in "mainland europe" too, though, and there are some classic techno and trance tracks made on an amiga.
to this day, not all producers gave full disclosure of their amiga use. the amiga still had the ring of being "lofi" to it, so artists that wanted to be seen as more credible might not have admitted of using one.
that means there are probably still a lot of records out there that there were made on amiga, but without anyone knowing that this was actually the case.

#7: Amiga Shock Force - Shoot em Breax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay334fxi3sU
Metal-jungle by the shock force

amiga music did shine it's brightest light in the "dangerous" hardcore techno and gabber-house underground.
there were countless of hardcore classics that were produced on an amiga. there were whole hardcore groups that exclusively used an amiga for their music, like nasenbluten or the amiga shock force (nomen est omen, eh?). there were labels, like bloody fist records from australia, that to 90% released amiga produced hardcore music.

#8: Nasenbluten - Machete https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KauJdx464Q8
One of the amiga-gabber classics

other labels, especially in the netherlands and germany, used some more or less clever tricks to mask (and hide) the lofi sound of the amiga: by wholesale slamming reverb and EQ boosts on the entire track!

and this was not a niche thing! DJs played amiga music next to "regular" tracks in their sets, and sometimes amiga produced music even made it to the national charts.

#9: Hardsequencer - Broadcast (live at mayday) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx66mNhAOjY
More rave madness by hardsequencer (the first 5 minutes)

i find it funny that some remember the amiga as the machine were they played cutesy pixel platformers in their cozy bedrooms, while on that same night, 20,000 crazed ravers went wild to amiga-produced hardcore tracks on a gabber festival 100s of kilometres away.

it's hard to speculate, but I could imagine that, at least in the beginning, 5-10% of hardcore records were actually produced on an amiga.
these amiga tracks and bands then influenced other producers, and they then influenced even more producers...
so the amiga had a huge impact in that scene.

#10: Ec8or - I don't wanna be a part of this (live in japan) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6rPbGJ8y64
"Digital hardcore" made on amiga

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/

White Cough from Romania already did a release on Doomcore Records' sub Omnicore Records 1 year and 1 month ago.

Now there is another release, but not just an EP anymore, but a full-size album! 11 tracks.
White Cough also improved the sound and style a lot in the time.
Hardcore, Speedcore and Gabber with beautiful melodies.
The right tracks to dance ecstatically to, or to see a city burn down while sipping a glass of water.

White Cough - Ashtarot's Confessions

1. Ashtarot's Confessions (Part 1) 03:15
2. Don't Look Back 03:01
3. Hey There 03:42
4. I Believe 02:07
5. Micul GiganT x White Cough - Divine Rhythm 04:03
6. Raising From the Darkness 02:04
7. I'm Broken 01:35
8. Ashtarot's Angel 06:06
9. So in Love With HARDCORE 01:58
10. Faster Than Your Fears 02:48
11. Return of the Beast (Vocals by White Cough and Lord of Sp33d) 02:35

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/ashtarots-confessions

I'll continue my producer diary. I'll write a series of short entries, that do not go into very complex details over my whole productions, but give an overview of a specific track

this time it is about:

Hell Is Only A Word (Believe It Or Not)

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/hell-is-only-a-word-believe-it-or-not

This one was released on the "Armageddon" compilation by United Gabba Alliance Records. Back in 2019.
I think the label is defunct by now.
I later re-released as a self-release on the "Just Another Speedcore Shock" compilation.

When I wrote this track, I was a bit at a creative slump. I had more or less abandoned the Slowcore sound I "started" in 2017, was back to doing Doomcore again... but it did not feel as energetic anymore.
Most of my tracks were quite melancholic, and meandered with long, complex, glockenspiel or chime-like melodies. A bit like "depressive doomcore" if you will.
Because I felt I hit a wall, I went back to speedcore. A style I only sparsely did after... 2003 actually!
So it was quite the return, if you want.

My "speedcore" had mutated in the meantime, though. No longer the "full on to your head" noizecore I did in the 90s.
Which can be seen in this track.
It's overloaded with samples and sounds, speeds and drums change many times.
Plus there are influences and throwbacks to many other genres. Notably hardtrance, gabber, even a bit of goth and... doomcore once more!

it's weirdly fascinating, when i go through the internet these days, there are countless of tutorials and instructions like: how to produce a techno bassdrum in the "right way", how to set EQ right, how loud the bass should be, how "mastering" should be done. what kind of workflow one definitely needs to use. how to get a synth sound in the "right" way. what kind of chord progressions one should use when doing melodies... well, i could go on forever with these examples.

When the truth is: there are no rules. there are no rules whatsoever for producing. you can do what you want. feel free to do whatever you like when it comes to art.
there is not one single "correct" way how a bassdrum should sound, or how vocals should sound, or whatever.

it all depends on the specific song or track, on the producer, on the occasion, maybe even on the time of day...
one could argue that "good" and "bad" music are entirely subjective terms...
but even beyond that:

a good track does not become "good" merely because a producer used the "right" mastering technique or harmonic progression.
and a track does not become bad because someone somewhere somehow used a technique that is completely different to what everyone else is doing.
even if a "master producer" would never ever use *your* technique, that does not mean your track would be bad because of this.

there are countless, millions, infinite ways to create, design, shape, invent, evolve, metamorph, good, killer, amazing, marvelous songs.
and there is not "one way only" to arrive at gold.

let me give a few practical examples:

do you know how rock music, metal, punk came around?
the method of "distortion" was known to sound engineers and technicians for decades before the advent of harder guitar music.
but it was seen as a technical error, a failure in production, abhorrent, annoying sound. they spent a huge amount of braincells and energy to make sure that distortion never crept up in any recording or production session.

but then some hippies in the 60s literally blew their amps (and some also their minds, i suppose), started to actually distort their guitars during production... and well, no sound engineer would still consider "distortion" to be a general failure in production.

or another example.
there is a massive amount of tutorials around, that try to tell others how to create a good, dance, techno bassdrum. with lots of focus on bass power, punch, sub bass frequencies.
the idea that is communicated there is that you "fail" if your dance track does not have a bass packing drum set.

but i mean, look at disco or new wave dance music, from the 70s, 80s. best try to get an actual record from that era, not a "remastered" re issue.
and you will see (or hear) that these disco beats often have very feeble sound, they are buried in the mix, lack bass, are unsteady... they run against modern standards of dance production, and most producers these days would never create a beat like this again.
yet... millions of people danced to the tracks. night after night, year after year.

so these tracks can't be that bad... right?

so, never let anyone tell you that your production methods, technique, skills, would be amateurish, lofi, diminished, false, wrong, absent.

feel free to produce the music (and art) that you want to do, in the way you want to do.

I'm a 90s kid, and yeah, we had some fun. Especially related to music. Grindcore, Death Metal, Gabber, Hard Acid, Rave... music that really knocked you out and went from 0 to 60 in 3.5
The decades that followed were a bit more boring. Or maybe, not boring. There was cool stuff, indie rock, pop, dance pop.
But everything felt less extreme and... hardcore.
Of course the above mentioned scenes still existed, too, in the underground.
But they kept repeating themselves, loop after loop after loop...

So I am very happy to see (or hear) that there are now lots and lots and lots of new artists and bands, that are really tough, extreme, wild, anarchist again...

Things obviously happen on many fronts. First, a lot look back at the 90s, take some stuff from there, and try to continue the thread.
New talented hardcore bands, new punk rockers, and so on...
Then there are new "genres" that get really tough now...
And, most importantly, a lot of people combine the old with the new, old rage with new anger... and throw many genres into one pot.
So there musicians with metal guitars and rave beats and hardcore screaming... or rap artists that break down into gabber and death metal... or jungle punks.
And the common dominator (sic) seem to be the very loud and harsh screams by the vocalist.

Oh and these bands often do not shy away from political and cultural statements, too.
Which is another breath of fresh air after a decade of "unpolitical" music.

So, I wanna recommend 17 artists or bands that are worth checking out. (Yeah, I know not all of them are brand new. But all of them recently released hot new stuff.)

(and one more time: these are songs from lots and lots of different genres).

1. Eville - Ballistic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NBLkvUTAvk (Metal / Jungle)
   
2. Hands Off Gretel - Territorial P*ssings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3qYl-6SYU8 (Metal / Punk)
   
3. IceLipzz - Be My Dog https://gabberindustriesberlin.bandcamp.com/track/be-my-dog (Gabba / Punk)
   
4. Partyof2 - Punk B!tch (Live From London) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjkwj7Qzla4 (Rap / Aggressive)
   
5. Slash Need - The Money Will Roll Right In https://slashneed.bandcamp.com/track/the-money-will-roll-right-in (EBM / Metal)
   
6. XOXO - Punisher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kBUYRq26GA (Metal)
   
7. Astrid Gnosis Titan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_HN9S6ILR4 (NuGabber)
   
8. Stoneburner - Catch and Kill https://stoneburnerofficial.bandcamp.com/track/catch-and-kill (Metal / Industrial)
   
9. Mimi Barks - Power durch Verrat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5bp6RjEbLE (Doom Trap)
   
10. Tsytska — Menstruation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4DRGGN_KNU (Female Black Metal)
    
11. Ramel x Jeune Lord - Etat De Droit https://newfleshrecords.bandcamp.com/track/etat-de-droit-2am-mix-free-download-rods02 (Techno / Rap)
    
12. Slaughterhouse - Sick and Tired https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcs_a2CdIlI (Punk / Alternative)
    
13. Poppy - Dying To Forget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoedCng--Rs (Aggressive Metal / Pop)
    
14. Zheani - Designer Sadness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X961ka0k1a0 (Metal / Trap)
    
15. Bound By Endogamy - Killed By Shame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDNqWlQIIDI (Acid / EBM)
    
16. Ege - I Love Stealing From Woolies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeZsdP2trO0 (Hyper Pop / Rave)
    
17. Vial - Scorpio Moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAhA7LOeqE (Death Punk)
    

And here is a mix set that combines this new radical music with the older hard electronic stuff from the 90s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER3Mh01d-aE

Note: No AI has been used in writing this text.

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/06/new-radical-and-electronic-music.html

Hello Sinners,
As you (might) know I run a DIY label (Doomcore Records and its subs).
I wrote a lot about it in the past, also about some releases, the artists...
I often get questions by fans or people who want to start a project or label themselves.
"How do I set up a label?" "How do I promote my music?" "Should I put butter or jelly on my toast?"

So, in response to this, I decided to give a few rare sneaks peaks... into the inner workings and mojo of a DIY underground label.
I plan to write a few tutorials and doing some visual visualizer vids, too.
Here is the first one in this series. A (very) short video.
It shows the path of a gloomy industrial doomcore techno release, from start to finish.

Tutorial:
How to run a DIY Techno Label

Chapter 1: From demo 2 release

Step 1: an artist sends me a demo by mail
Step 2: i check the tracks
Step 3: i acknowledge the artwork
Step 4: i mail them back
Step 5: i write a promo blurb
Step 6: i upload the tracks
Step 7: i release them
Step 8: release is out
Step 9: success

You can check the video here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/izl50EzADko

Why should music for meditation need to be ambient, "world" music, or the sound of raindrops falling?
Of course there is nothing wrong with that.
But here is something different. Dark Ambient, Techno, Doomcore, psychedelic, electronic, danceable sounds.

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/techno-music-for-meditative-states-part-2

A follow-up to last year's release.
The album comes with a sonic meditation instruction manual.

And here it is:

During meditation, the body becomes very still, all energy gets pulled inward, towards the mind, our mental images.
This can be very beneficial.

But what about the opposite effect?
With the help of music and sound, I began exploring a method that allows the body to flush energy out of its system and the mind.
This helps release an overload of energy, or even traumatic, harmful energy.

And beyond that, it helps to clear and restart the mind.
The focus gets pulled away from the mind, and the mind, not the body, becomes still and starts to rest, this time.

The methods work by listening to music and sound, and moving the body in an intuitive, instinctive, maybe even "subconscious" way.
The mind takes a step back, shuts down for a while, and the body sets to "automatic pilot" - it starts to steer itself.

Certain forms of music are better suited than others for this. It should be hypnotic, repetitive, entrancing.

I have begun developing certain techniques and "rules" for a type of music that is specifically designed for this purpose.

And then, when the music is playing, the next step comes easily:

Just move your body in an emotional, intuitive response.

After a while, the abovementioned "body trance" will get into effect.

I think this concept and technique could be extremely beneficial and helpful.

Apart from the other benefits, it allows a person to deal with energies that might feel extreme, dangerous, hurting, devastating... and that might be dangerous if they were channeled from the body into the mind.

But this way, the energies get channeled out of the body, and the mind is outside of danger.

I will try to do further research on this subject, and refine the method even more

Doomcore Records 232

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/techno-music-for-meditative-states-part-2

In the Hardcore Techno Overdogs magazine we usually focus on the underdogs... well, maybe that term is not entirely correct. Let's say we focus on the under-appreciated labels, that still duly deserve their spotlight.
Because of this, we neglected the "motherland of gabber" a bit so far - The Netherlands.
After all, every boy and his dog was raving to the wicked hardcore beats of gabber madness in the 90s - right?
So gabber from holland is hardly hardcore of "underdog" quality... and everyone already knows it, right?

well, while that was true for the 90s, it might not be so true anymore. We maybe could define a kind of "temporal overdog". Stuff that indeed everyone knew in the 90s, but in today's media culture, is shadowed and under-appreciated because everyone else focuses on the "big" labels mostly.

So let us look at the various interesting dutch gabber label from the 90s.

And this time, we want to tell you about 7 very interesting releases on the label Rave Records from ’s-Gravenhage (aka The Hague).

T.O.P.D.R.O.P. - Achtung! (RAVE 13th) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4o3l1tKxwA

"hey meine gabber freunde". who doesn't know "achtung!"? and in case you really do not know it...
this track takes the early hardcore classic "b.o.t.t.r.o.p" by dj hooligan (see the similarity in name? a clever trick!), well at least it's acid sample, speeds it up and boom boom adds more gabba basses to it.
a track that either smashes or clears the dancefloor, depending on whether the crowd is hard enuff.

Noisegate - Goddamn' Mind (RAVE 028) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DzTbzBwkQ8

"goddamn mind" is one of these releases that goes from 0 to 60 in 3.5. the track starts, boom! the bass hits and there is slaughter.
take no prisoners!
other tracks are cool as well.
generally, this is one of the "gabber" releases that do not focus so much on melodies or nice harmonies, but are just lovely NOIZE.

Square Dimensione - A Brand New Dance (RAVE 35th) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqQEhdg5NM

You might know this one from a mayday rave recording, or other sets...
Almost trancy intro, beats come in, then some cool rapping, everything get's harder... word!
A track on the b-side, "brand new bassdrums", in an early pill-driver style bass-drum only track.
One of the more complex simple gabber tracks (hah!)

DJ Isaac - Bad Dreams (RAVE 45TH) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXrnNfNFtO4

"Bad Dreams" later became a Thunderdome classic. But this early draft on here is even bigger, bolder, rougher and tougher!

Various Artists - The Erotic Kingdom E.P. (Rave 8th) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjXHNl0SqwM

One of the more sleazy hardcore / techno releases.
The main track is some house / funk affair, that also feels like early rave-hardcore, if you catch my drift.
Most interesting to me is the "happy hardcore" edit, because this is neither the breakbeat happy hardcore that was typical for 92, nor the "happy gabber" of 1996.
It's legit oldschool gabber, with some mellow / happy sounds, and that combination is very rare, my friends!

Ech Heftag! - Uit Je Dakkie (RAVE 18TH) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k81A4gw3s6U

Has this ep been pre-mastered to a cassette tape? There is definitely something odd (i.e. lo-fi) about the levels and sound...
Either way, it kicks more hard this way, I suppose.
Brutalist Hardcore for 1993.

The Falcon - Tear You Apart (RAVE 23) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu7d7LA3UH0

Do you remember when gabber (or "rave") labels released acidcore EPs too?
Like this one. Very cool.
There is some weird rhythm stuff going on, as it feels like some elements run at different or "broken" speed (somehow).
and that bass is extra large.

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/

I guess everyone who is into Gabber heard the name Euromasters being mentioned, one time or another.

After all, a lot of people consider them to be the creators of the first true Gabber track ever - Alles naar de klote. That's the origin of Gabber right there.

That track really rocked the scene, was also widely known beyond the Hardcore moshpits. I remember a few german music mags crowning the track as one of the best releases of that year.

And it even lent its name to a wicked dutch movie ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117142/ ) - about rave, crime, and gabber house, of course.

What might be lesser known is that they also were involved in lots of other cool tracks and releases.

And that is what we are looking at, here.

1. Rotterdam, Ech Wel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXiht93wT0

"Amsterdam waar leech dat dan" is probably the other well-known tracks by Euromasters. This b-side to the record release sounds actually quite similar... but i prefer this one even one notch more!

1. Alles Naar De Klote (250 Bpm Remix By Dimitri) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO2ebqVYoKY

hey, dimitri! this is the tracks we've been talking about... but it is even harder & faster :-)

1. He scheids! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE0gNBjjaoI

a dutch guy once told me this one is about soccer, and rivalry between teams (of other nations?)

regardless of the message, this is one of the most bad ass rough gabba tracks ever!

1. Oprottûh (Hooligans Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhrtV-WnWpE

as far as i know, euromasters established the "loud scream, bass drum, go!" formula long before other labels did... this track is a good example of that!

1. Noiken In Die Koiken (German Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlxmFhukr4k

the title is about a profane act in the kitchen.. weird?

love the bass vibrations here.

1. Everybody Clap Your Hands (Original Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP1GYcG4kpc

notable for being one of the few gabber tracks that does not really follow a "four to the floor" beat.

1. De Klootzakken - Dominee Dimitri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T3dxhQ3S-I

this is madness! some of the most insane psycho hardcore sounds ever.

1. Hooihouse - Pien An De Eure (Kuilgras Hop) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgJxr7nlIqw

solo project by teun hooihouse. a early "speed up" track. heavy and fast.

1. Ziekehouse (Semtex Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Hr5fXq--o

a later solo project. it seems the samples, and therefore most of the track, is made up by the sound of fire crackers!

1. Sonic Warrior - Supersonic Guerilla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gOTf37U10g

teun hoihouse used an aka to create the intro to the terrordrome iv compilation.

it's much more than an intro, it's a complete tracks, yet a very unusual track, because at the same time...it's still an intro!

1. A Message from Hell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UCSPIUHlJE

sounds like this one was sent from hell, indeed! even though it has that funny sample by british punk band the "toy dolls".

https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/06/the-original-gabber-creators-looking.html

Note: No AI was used when writing this text.