lostparliament | Entries tagged with other stuff

It's 23:02, March 26th 2024, as I write the opening portion of this post. Why do I use 24-hour time here? Perhaps it's a strange flight of fancy.

Regardless, I've been listening to an assortment of freeform hardcore over the past week, mostly inspired by my prior musings on the works of Betwixt & Between and the evolution of J-core over the last two decades. Some of you who witnessed my findings might have seen this comment I made regarding my thoughts on the genre during the early 2000s:

“freeform hardcore is a genre I absolutely could not have wrapped my head around 10 years ago. there's something about how these kinds of tracks have remained steadfast to their roots for so long that I come to enjoy them for, now that I understand music a little better”

This comment sparked an interesting discussion with a friend of mine, who asked me about my conscious awareness relating to the genres I've gravitated towards in recent years. How does an artist's style affect the historical context of when a track is produced? Is there a correlation between greater historical understanding and the “enjoyment” of a particular music piece? Do you actually need this kind of knowledge to influence how you perceive the music you listen to? These are all valid questions, ones that I think deserve more care than a passing anecdotal mention.

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Dizzying Life - Soleily, from J-NERATION ‘00 [J-NERATION, 2019]

Looking at music genres from a more active perspective is a process that I don't think comes naturally to many people. The average person will be able to tell you the difference between pop and rock, for instance, but differentiating something esoteric like psytrance from a niche genre on the obscurity scale of Japanese hi-tech, especially by defining characteristics, is asking far too much of the general public. The point is that most people don't inherently need to know, because it scarcely matters in the long run. You wouldn't need to look up the exact serial number of one house lightbulb you might not change again, right? Sure, this is a contentious point in itself, but most of my friends who enjoy music do so without worrying about the little details, just as I know nothing about the Shadowverse TCG, or League of Legends. (If you are one of the people who falls into this category, please leave me a sufficiently dissatisfied response in my private messages. Thank you for your time.)

I do think that developing a personal taste is important. Many will ascribe benefits such as “knowing what you like” or “being free from posting bad online,” but I will present an argument slightly outside the box. Developing and cultivating a personal taste in music allows people to better organise and curate the kinds of music they listen to under a more defined framework. You might not like how artist A produces music in one genre, but perhaps there are elements that artist B (possibly connected to artist A in some way) illustrates in a more dynamic, or interesting way. Having that framework as a starting point can expand your music horizons in a much more comfortable and organic way than relying on an algorithm ever will, because you actively make the first step to judging whether a genre or artist matches your tastes or not. Of course, it’s ultimately a subjective process at the end of the day, and you won't have the graces of autoplay forcing related music into your ear canals to make the choice for you, but a lot of music in niche genres don't provide those kinds of luxuries. Sometimes you just gotta take the leap - and that's the thrill of it all.

Learning of the context for a genre, especially if it's close to the public consciousness, is hardly necessary. I dare say that J-core only provides me the opportunity because of how obfuscated its history is. For someone history-oriented like me, I like having that extra awareness to enrich my understanding of early J-core because of how the environment has changed from when I started listening in 2011. You don't need that kind of knowledge, nor do you need to know exactly what goes into music composition. Hell, I can't tell you half of the elements that go into dariacore, and that's a genre I'm particularly biased towards, partially thanks to being friends with one of the more high-profile names in person. That kind of knowledge might spoil a person's experiences with music too much, because it creates the impression that you have to know everything about a genre and its artists to fully comprehend what's on offer. No way. You can do the reading if you want, but don't feel obligated to do so because it's one of a kind. It's the difference between black coffee and five sugars. Start with what you know, go with the flow, and take it nice and slow - music is entertainment all the same, not just a distraction or condiment.

tl;dr ゆっくりしていってねw

Having (hopefully) articulated my views on these topics, I want to spend time discussing my thoughts on freeform hardcore in more detail, so as to better answer my feelings on how I discover new music. I’m technically aware of the freeform style, having been an avid fan of Betwixt & Between for a long time, and I've come to learn that fellow TANO*C contributors like DJ Hase (companion to B&B as part of the RaverRose unit) and Alabaster have produced similar works that fit the classification. So what else did I find? What was my view of the genre afterwards?

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Void - Alabaster, from HARDCORE SYNDROME 2 [HARDCORE TANO*C, 2008]

As I previously mentioned in my introductory comments, freeform hardcore initially struck me as a genre that rarely strayed from its roots. There's an ever-present dark sound to most productions that evokes a certain feeling of melancholy, emphasised by the use of acid/psychedelic synths to drive a heavy-hitting, frantic kind of tone. B&B often mixed and matched the sharp acid synths with his frequent use of goa trance sounds to create a powerful melodic dissonance, while Alabaster leaned into the piercing acid as a trademark that defined his TANO*C works like Machine Messiah and Sarcomite. These kinds of tracks wouldn't have appealed to me a decade ago, but there's a certain immemorialism to this kind of sound production that draws me closer to the genre's past, even today.

Many freeform hardcore mainstays of the 2000s who've continued the tradition into the present owe much to the sounds that first defined the genre, a quality that speaks to my historian brain like no other. I can appreciate the acknowledgement of the “glory years” because there's no need to reinvent the wheel here. To me, the sounds in freeform hardcore are no different from the sounds of techcore in how they stick very close to the cutting edge - while the latter seeks to drive home that the future is now, the former reminds you that we are never too far off from music that pushes our creative imagination. Rather than saying “freeform is dead,” I thus posit that freeform is still alive. Schrodinger’s James Brown proves itself to be an inexhaustible phenomenon.

Something else that interests me with subgenres like freeform hardcore and techcore is how artists and DJs push the landscape of existing music beyond what many have already categorised, essentially creating a new breed of music built from the scaffolding of absolute freedom. Listening to Hardcore Baby’s Revenge a few days prior to writing this definitely cemented this opinion, because I never felt the impression that “these songs sound the same” at any real point. There’s an inherent danger holding this sentiment with mixed albums in particular, because one would expect a continuous "flow" to maintain the experience, but the variety of darker elements mixed together with the classic breakbeat hardcore of early 2000s underground tunes creates a journey in itself. My favourite track on this album is Good Night Tokyo by DJ Shimamura, containing much of the familiar rave-like elements that pulled me so feverishly towards compilations like Lilium Records' Rave Inside!! series.

Many grow tired of trance and deep house for arguably the same reasons that the aforementioned genres are held in such high regard, but my reasoning for why the reception is so different, and why I make it a habit to listen to a wide array of music, is because writing what you know can only take you so far when the extent of your awareness is solely built upon knowing that you know nothing at all.

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Eternal - RR-ThermalForce, from EXCALIBUR VOL.1 [RaverRose, 2005]

I try to avoid speaking with certainty on matters relating to my hobbies. Music is a passion that I hold close to my heart because of the connections I’ve made throughout my life, but you can never be too certain as to how accurate you may be. Taking that first step during COVID-19 to enrich my perspectives on music and learn more about the various subcultures I encountered, as I did with society in academia, was a learning experience that I enjoyed undertaking partially because it felt natural to me. I like knowing more about obscure things by trade, but I acknowledge that such a process may be intimidating to others. Admittedly, I feel self-conscious typing this out, because I know it sounds inherently pretentious. Do people actually read these and give a toss about what I have to say if I just unfurl it into the abyss? It’s why I’m very hands-off when suggesting new art to people - our tastes are ultimately decided by ourselves at the end of the day. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to enjoy art. Nor do I have any interest in admonishing others for their perspectives.

My first proclivity with music is to have fun. Nothing more, nothing less.

I hope you enjoy this journey through sound, just as I and many others continue to do.

[now and forever]

Salutations. You may have read the title of this post and had a thought similar to "you are delusional" rise up in your head.

A quick briefing before I explain myself in more detail - I have kept myself informed on the state of competitive YGO since 2012, having taken a break between 2016-2022 to play Sound Voltex. Though I have not competed in any major tournament settings beyond the local level since learning the game on a "competitive" level, I am at least at the level where I have an intermediate understanding of competitive play.

With that background out of the way, what do I mean by "how Sound Voltex made me a better YGO player," and how do two completely unrelated games that happen to be developed by the same parent company (Konami) correlate in any way?

Let me begin with the evergreen adage - "play more."

To the rhythm game players who read this, you will undoubtably kiss your teeth and turn your nose upwards in a manner best described as casual annoyance, while this statement will hold no such resonance to the Yugioh folk at home who grow tired of my prose.

In the wider rhythm game genre, the phrase "play more" is the advice given to any player looking for any potential foundations for improvement, a phrase as ethereal as it is frustratingly vague. Like telling a new YGO player to start learning the game through reading a Swordsoul guide, the sentiment has good intentions, aimed to ease you into the process of independent study so that you take a more reflective approach to understanding your game on a greater scale than the material you engage with from credit to round. It's meant to be as open-ended as possible, because having lesser freedom of agency doesn't encourage players to learn the intricacies of Yugioh or rhythm games. Rather, it establishes the opposite perspective, the idea that you must follow the process from A to Z. Can you say you're really learning anything if the first step is basically reading an IKEA manual? You develop bad habits that you depend on too much as a player, superficial crutches that later become your defining association with any experiences you may have.

With this in mind, I wish to briefly refute the games that people often compare YGO to. Many equate the process of learning and playing YGO to fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom, where the execution curve is steep, learning the game is obtuse at best, and you can very easily lose agency with even one minor lapse of judgement.

This is an apt comparison, were it not for the fact that beatmania IIDX exists.

Almost all of the issues that people bring up with YGO (high execution barrier, nearly vertical learning curve, information overload from the legacy format) are the same problems that make IIDX brutally difficult for newer players to pick up. The game has developed such a reputation over its 25-year history that most high-level IIDX players will often tell you to steer well clear until you're already confident enough in at least one other title. Hell, if you look at it a certain way, song removals/revivals are basically the IIDX equivalent of a banlist. Konami has been making legacy titles difficult to learn as a new player for years now, but the problem of poor learning material is a constant factor that still stands to this day. I have my issues with IIDX in the same way I do with YGO, but the former has that "legacy prestige" behind it that can somewhat explain why it's so tough to get into. It makes sense in the context of rhythm games, because the genre already has an accessibility problem that makes self-study even more valuable to the core experience - something YGO has no excuse for, as a game with free simulators like EDOPro at the average player's disposal.

So how did playing SDVX help me improve (even tangentially) at YGO? It all comes back to "play more."

The most common interpretation of "play more" is to experience as much of your chosen game as possible, or in essence, play as many charts as you can relative to your skill level once you hit a wall close to your physical limit. When I was stuck at a certain level of progression (e.g. the level 17-18 wall) one of the best options I had at my disposal was to play more level 14-16 songs.

Study up on fundamentals.
What key knowledge am I missing that would be useful to know at a higher level of play?
Am I currently encouraging any bad habits that should be avoided in future?

Playing with a wider range of options gave me the foundations for self-reflection, like the above questions, that let me think more intuitively about my playstyle, providing me with more focused aims and objectives than the simple "I want to achieve x goal (e.g. skill lv. ∞) by y date" goalposts that people always post and never follow through with. Additionally, it gave me a stronger appreciation for the game beyond my current understanding - how could I say that SDVX was my favourite rhythm game if I didn't give every single song or chart in the game a fair shot, and try learning something each time? By playing both the best and worst of what the game has to offer, I took that information on board and used it to influence my goals to achieve in future sessions. I figured out what I'm good at, and what needs improvement.

That leads me to YGO. I've never been the best player, deckbuilder, or teacher prior to the release of Master Duel, but effectively starting from scratch after six years away from the game reset many of the problematic mentalities I held during my youth. If I wanted to learn the game again, I would have to understand the new hotness. Mess around with decks and cards I would have never never fathomed the existence of back when Ghost Ogre was new.

I picked up a newer midrange deck (Marincess) to establish my fundamentals once more. (It's my pet deck now.)
Tearlaments gave me the motivation to learn decks with more freeform maneuverability.
Against my better judgement, I crafted a whole Labrynth core. Now I understand the main elements of control playstyles.

Playing more isn't always a message borne from laziness. It's advice that stems from poor articulation. Should you choose to arbitrarily limit yourself for whatever reason, the end result will stunt your growth and enjoyment of the game. You don't engage with what the game offers you, but instead pick at your own discretion because the process scares you. That's completely fine and understandable. Nonetheless, I think you should try to step outside your comfort zone by habit, rather than force. Try to veer towards what interests you first, whether that's a new set of charts, or a deck type you don't often play with, and make an effort to sit down with your experiences after each session. Think about it all - the good, the bad, what you were confident with, what requires more fine-tuning.

To end this post on a positive note, I think picking up a new deck, or playing a chart for the first time, is an admirable effort. Rather than viewing it as a stepping stone for your endgoal, think of it as a new perspective on how you already see your chosen game. The greatest initiatives start from the smallest ripples.

I hope this encourages you to try something new, and find a fresh understanding in something you (hopefully) already love so dearly.

If you finish reading this with one core message in mind, let it be this one:
DO NOT RUN AWAY FROM ENDYMION

This is the second entry in a series of blog posts where I briefly (for a vague definition) reflect on the J-core genre over the last 25 or so years. You can find the first entry in this series, where I cover the influences and legacy of the late Betwixt & Between, here.

(See also the impetus that led to me writing about this topic here.)

I've recently been thinking about the developments of Japanese hardcore as a music genre since learning about the wider otaku subculture back in 2010, a journey that's led me down an incredibly steep, and yet fascinatingly undocumented rabbit hole in the eight or so months since it first crossed my mind. Learning about the early discography of artists like DJ SHARPNEL, Betwixt & Between, REDALiCE, and DJ TECHNORCH not only gave me an appreciation for the genre that you could only ever find in Youtube "deep dive" essays, but also presented me with a number of realisations about the early 2000s internet that only become more difficult to accept.

Throughout a number of my posts on various hobbies and interests, I've often brought up the importance of "historical value" regarding how people regard their obscure hyperfixations - why greater focus is ascribed to specific works, what messages we can gather from analysing their historical significance to the culture, how important it is that we keep preserving these mediums. As one particular video essay producer has proven with his findings on plagarism over the last couple of weeks, the average person doesn't care about these deliberations. Most don't think about the prescribed value we place on anything that doesn't provide immediate financial benefit to us. Unfortunately, that sentiment runs far deeper than even those covering niche topics seem to realise, a perspective I covered in my aforementioned "finer appreciation for the otaku (speed) arts" - anime, visual novels, and the occasional magazine get top billing, while everything else is relegated to one dedicated individual forced into even more faithful depictions of Icarus for the credible information they need.

There's a point to my rambling here - it's hard to discuss the foundational years of J-core in much the same way. A lot of highly valuable primary sources relating to J-core history before and immediately after the turn of the millennium are lost to time in some form, with any records of their existence mentioned in an offhand Wikipedia footnote for a website culled before we had the Internet Archive. Trying to do research on where J-core really started is a difficult endeavour - the Wikipedia page only lists four sources at all, and the article I used as a springboard on the topic for the longest time doesn't cite any sources of their own in turn. Compare that to the dearth of sources used to discuss the overwhelming legacy of this infamous VN I can't directly name, and you start to notice a problem. A lot of primary sources on J-core are as "primary" as one gets - if you can't cite it straight from the horse's mouth, say no thank you for the horse.

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Many definitive origin points of J-core are difficult to narrow down, but the most agreed-upon starting point to define the genre as we know it today is sharpnel vs Project Gabbangelion, the very first release under the "High Speed Music Team Sharpnel" moniker. I've talked a bit about this album's significance before, but listening to this album highlights just how many elements of J-core were codified by one initially obscure group in 1998. A lot of the contemporary European hardcore techno and industrial hardcore traditions of the time show their influence throughout every track here, but this work is uniquely distinct in forming a bridge between the "music junkie" and "otaku culture" perceptions of what would later be known as Japanese hardcore. One of the arguably defining traditions that gave J-core its distinct anime-adjacent identity was the (sometimes egregious) use of anime and VN vocal samples - it can be argued that this was an attempt to make this branch of hardcore music more approachable to an underground audience, who may have seen kindred value seeing this budding genre rise from the ashes of Y2K much like Serial Experiments Lain. That's hyperbole, but you can probably appreciate what I'm trying to say here.

DJ SHARPNEL's influence is widely credited as one of the progenitors behind the J-core term, as there are a number of artists and releases that still follow the general framework established by the group's music to this day. Hell, I listened to an album released a month ago that basically captures the spirit of what SHARPNEL J-core is all about. To ignore these contributions is a gross misunderstanding of how the genre has developed between the 2000s and now. That being said, I would like to draw attention to the other High Speed Music Team albums, because I think they deserve some mention in understanding how the iconic SHARPNEL sound created its own offshoot of J-core alongside the modern internet. Special shoutout to memecore, you have to listen to the genre to understand its genius.

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Highspeed Star - Jea, from Double Dutch [高速音楽隊シャープネル, 1998]

Double Dutch is something of an enigma in relation to the wider history of Japanese underground music pre-2000. I'm going to keep any background on this album VERY brief, because it's enough for a whole Youtube video by itself (that I would LOVE to cover), but it's worth talking about it in some form not confined to a wiki summary.

To cut a long story short, Double Dutch, as well as the following mini-album From The Heart, are effectively lost media. According to notes corroborated by Discogs and VGMDB, approximately 40 copies of the former were sold at the very second M3 doujin event in 1998, with the album quickly discontinued afterwards due to the group's "dissatisfaction with the content." The second half of that sentence is a widely-circulated statement on these two sites that I was barely able to trace back to the 2015 SHARPNELSOUND CHRONICLE booklet, but the information regarding its incredibly limited print run is something I can definitely confirm. What better source to back up that claim than its mysterious absence from the discography section on DJ SHARPNEL's old website?! Alas, both albums lost their master copy data in a hard drive failure shortly afterwards, which makes both of them incredibly rare, if not pseudo-lost media.

I'm going to spare you the remainder of that background information, because it's definitely worth looking at in isolation. Nonetheless, Double Dutch is a fascinating release to listen to in hindsight, partially due to the knowledge that the SHARPNEL team weren't happy with the final product. Upon first listen, it's immediately evident that these tracks feel extremely underbaked - something feels missing throughout, and the resultant mastering process feels strangely hollow as a result. This is apparent even in some of the more fleshed-out tracks, like Heart Attack and Highspeed Star, as anyone who's paying any sort of attention can hear that some layers are considerably lacking in depth. The gabber and techno kicks used throughout feel bizarrely rough around the edges, creating this odd sense of cognitive dissonance between what you're perceiving and what you're actually listening to. That said, DJ Jea (the main act of the SHARPNEL collective) did view his Double Dutch contributions fondly, as he would revisit the previously mentioned songs in the following release, also named From The Heart (now subtitled 地獄編 or "Hell Compilation" to differentiate it.)

Highspeed Star in particular is a track that Jea sought fit to give proper justice, seeing no less than three separate revisions over the next three releases. These draw upon more upbeat makina and happy hardcore inspirations to create a livelier sound, perhaps serving as a precursor to the Bright Colors series under HARDCORE TANO*C a decade later. That being said, Double Dutch is an unintentional focal point in analysing how J-core has developed since its inception, because much of the later scene and its sub-categories would sound vastly different without its release. Artists were willing to take risks and innovate their sound to create something more unique than a simple import of European underground values, even if it didn't meet expectations - I argue that early J-core became synonymous with adaptation, morphing the inspirations of vastly different music styles to create a new blend that ran wild and free next to the early internet.

As the early history of DJ SHARPNEL as a unit is documented in much more detail than their past as the High Speed Music Team, I'd like to return to HARDCORE TANO*C for a moment, and talk a bit about their impact on the scene that's still around now. (Refer to my last post on Betwixt & Between, seen at the top of this post, for a quick refresher and general background.)

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Optical Force - umbrella, from HARDCORE SYNDROME [HARDCORE TANO*C, 2007]

While TANO*C had established themselves within the J-core sphere as a new-blooded internet collective borne from the depths of 2ch, it is with the release of the first HARDCORE SYNDROME in 2007 that the group began to find their proper footing. J-core started to diversify in many respects - from the inspirations it drew upon, to the artists who collaborated and contributed far and wide in pursuit of their own interpretation of this post-Financial Crisis sound, the genre had become a truly international project helmed by the teens of the new World Wide Web. Just as artists like JAKAZiD took inspiration from metamorphoses in Japan, homegrown talents were more than willing to innovate on the techniques that DJ SHARPNEL had founded. You still had the hardcore and industrial techno parts of J-core still spearheading the movement, but now there was room for happy hardcore, for UK hardcore... and as USAO would showcase, Frenchcore had a big impact too. Japanese hardcore was truly worldwide.

Many of the artists featured in TANO*C compilations envisioned their own style for J-core, something that the group was enthusiastic to showcase in a variety of ways. The SPEED BALL series skews more towards a punchier hardstyle and speedcore mixture aimed at retaining parts of the genre's tradition, while the Bright Colors series skews more towards the happy hardcore vibe that became more of the "standard" in later years. There was no set constitution for J-core, and that may be the reason why its history is so hard to clarify during its formulative years. DJ Shimamura shares this sentiment in a 2018 Bandcamp article highlighting J-core artists, stating “I am only making hardcore in Japan, I do not have the consciousness of making J-core. I think that this is probably the same for many Japanese artists.” Just as J-core was a freeform genre with no set conventions, it was a chimera of artistic perspective thanks to the rise of file sharing websites like Megaupload and Youtube proliferating its spread to a wider audience than the club scapes of yonderdecade.

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Opal rain - YUKIYANAGI, from Never Forget Vacation 4 [Login Records, 2020]

These days, J-core has become much harder to define. DJ Shimamura follows up his earlier statement with the idea that the term "was born as a word to easily express a lot of unique Japanese sounds" - he's certainly not wrong, if you look at what the genre has become now. Many artists are following that direction, aiming for something closer to an underground Japanese interpretation of various genres like UK hardcore, psytrance, and hardstyle, rather than a catch-all term like J-core. Sure, you can argue that "J-core" is a twist on those existing genres expressed in a number of different forms, but you end with the question of "what makes J-core any different from calling it "Japanese-inspired [insert genre here]" by that point?" Nobody knows.

I end this piece with my own thoughts on how J-core will evolve over the next decade. Personally speaking, I think J-core has mutated to the point where trying to codify a single interpretation of it feels counterproductive. A wealthy degree of new artists contributing towards the genre aren't even from Japan, while there's still some pretty clear differences between the kind of hardcore you'd hear in Europe/America and what's birthed under the J-core label. Rhythm games have started to adopt these changing sounds, for better or for worse. We're in an age of what music otaku scathingly call "otogecore," music produced for arcade games like beatmania IIDX and SOUND VOLTEX first and foremost. The side effect of this acknowledgement is that the genre has started an ouroboros of inspiration, constantly eating itself alive in a search for the next banger.

I won't say that J-core is dead. But I won't say it's alive right now, either. It's in a weird spot, what with collectives like MEGAREX moving away from the hardcore roots for a more post-modern hi-tech basis. The genre needs more artists to push boundaries, and less people citing rhythm games as their sole guideline for tracks. It's time for a move away from the banger culture.

tl;dr: Who the Fuck is James Brown?

[we love hardcore]

Current Music: DOCUMENTAL - DJ Shimamura

How does one define J-core?

As someone who's been an avid, yet casual enjoyer of the music genre for close to 13 years by this point, it's a question that's never really struck me with any real sense of curiosity until fairly recently. However, with the evergreen debacle over music trends rapidly swinging between revolution and stagnation, I took some time to think about the changes to J-core (and its influences) since I started listening to the genre back in 2010. Groups like HARDCORE TANO*C were the entry point to this type of music at the start of the last decade - but there's one name that's caught my eye for many years despite their arguably diminishing influence on the current scene, an artist who I've come to see as the bridge between the past and present of underground Japanese hardcore.

(For reference, HARDCORE TANO*C recently celebrated their 20th anniversary with a new album at time of writing, appropriately titled '20'. I haven't listened to it yet, but anyone in private correspondence will know my thoughts soon enough.)

Betwixt & Between was a regular contributor to the foundational years of both J-core and HARDCORE TANO*C. His style of freeform trance was a hallmark of the genre during the 2000s, creating an ethereal blend of traditional hardcore and trance elements that earned him the renown of artists both within and outside Japan. Though primarily known for this uniquely darker energetic sound, Betwixt & Between would experiment with various works that were more true to form for the genres he took inspiration from, like speedcore and DJ SHARPNEL-like breakcore. There's a clear influence of contemporary J-core trends that guides much of his music, but when listening through the perspective of the genre now, it feels refreshing to gauge the complex differences that defined what tracks were like during the period.

It's hard to find a readily complete discography of his work to listen to, partially due to the relative obscurity of formative J-core until the last year or so, but I'd like to offer a selection of some of my favourite tracks that best illustrate how revolutionary Betwixt & Between was as a composer. There's no better place to start... than the beginning.

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City of Solitude is a track that absolutely shows its age when compared to any J-core track from the last five years, but there are a number of elements that feel very familiar to someone who's fond of other underground electronic genres nowadays like techcore. Betwixt & Between's style shines through in this composition, with the sharp leads drawing your attention right from the start contrasted with the deep techno kicks and sparing use of prominent snares that keep focusing your attention back towards the main melody as it develops. It's a track that displays a ruthless sense of simple efficiency at what it does, and it's not a stretch to say that this would be a defining characteristic of B&B's compositions that was further refined to elegance over the next eight years.

Many of Betwixt & Between's works during the early 2000s are lost to history for various reasons, but some are preserved through his frequent live performances through NRGetic Romancer, a label and series of live shows that he regularly contributed towards.

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It's much easier to talk about the mix itself than what can be gathered of the Betwixt and Between style in mid-2005, but you can really feel a sense of progression starting to emerge in many of the unreleased tracks. Some of my personal standouts here are East of Eden, Liberation, and Reincarnation. All of these tracks use a very pronounced goa trance synth to emphasise the piercing leads that B&B was known for, creating a vibrant high-NRG take on freeform hardcore that feels revolutionary for the period. I'd dare argue that Liberation in particular leans more towards psytrance at some points, incorporating an extreme use of this style that borders on futuristic sounding - a befitting song title for a groundbreaking producer.

This mix also includes the track Disturbed Mind, which wouldn't be released for another two months following this set - much of what I previously iterated applies here too, but the track is pretty damn good by itself, so go take an isolated gander.

Watch on YouTube

Betwixt & Between would start to mix elements of his different hardcore/trance influences together in his later tracks, leaning more towards one style or another rather than always innovating on his unique hybrids of the two. This is apparent with his contributions to DiGiTAL GENERATiON EP in 2008, Tindaros and Invoker. The former adopts a more trance-like approach to B&B's format, while the latter takes on a darker high-NRG tone reminiscent of the recently released HARDCORE SYNDROME. There's a clear diversification in what defines J-core from this period onwards, as the contributions of non-Japanese artists like JAKAZiD (who contributed to the first three HARDCORE SYNDROME compilations under his Joshka alias) would bring in a fresh set of inspirations to shake the genre's foundations.

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A "new era" would soon bear ripe fruit, as HARDCORE SYNDROME 3 introduced a more diverse and energetic interpretation of J-core, with aspects of happy and UK hardcore added to the already diverse mixture of underground esotericism. Betwixt & Between would flex his own concept of this shifting trend with division 4, a track that incorporates all of the developments made throughout both the genre and his time as a music artist leading to its release. It skews towards the industrial hardcore tradition that a good section of HARDCORE TANO*C had started with, but there's a more dynamic melody built up with the fast-paced 'four on the floor' hardcore kicks that had become more pronounced in later B&B tracks. When people discuss Betwixt & Between as a music producer, they often refer to this period as the one that best defines his talent, as he was more willing to experiment with innovations from across the globe in making tracks that radicalised the definition of J-core as a medium.

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This framework would be refined in B&B's contribution to the next iteration of HARDCORE SYNDROME, as Surging adopts a frontward-facing goa trance identity that's closely intertwined with J-core's changing definition as a genre. Many tracks from HARDCORE SYNDROME 4 share common ground in their basic aspects, but each artist takes great care in forming their own niche that demonstrates a break away from the binary of classifications like music genres and conventions.

(On a side note, Betwixt & Between would occasionally experiment with genres other than freeform and 'transitional' J-core after DiGiTAL GENERATiON EP - he would produce a more traditional industrial hardcore track in City of Traitors for HARDCORE SYNDROME 2, a melodic speedcore contribution titled 12 little fragments of silence for SPEED BALL Z, and occasional collaborations with DJ TECHNORCH. They're all incredible tracks.)

Watch on YouTube

All of the lessons and insights that were honed over the past eight years of music production culminated in Betwixt and Between's first solo album, Nanosecond Eternity. This compiled every aspect of his music from the very beginning, drawing upon nearly all the elements that had defined his music throughout the period working under NRGetic Romancer and TANO*C - the remasters of Awakening (previously subtitled East of Eden Pt.2) and City of Solitude are a poignant acknowledgement to the groups that started a genre's new history. If you only have time to listen to a portion of Betwixt & Between's discography, make it this album. I guarantee that it won't disappoint you.

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all is well (Being toward Death)

B&B's final contribution to the HARDCORE SYNDROME series would be in the fifth installment, with the ominously titled tout est bien (Sein zum Tode) marking one of his final three original compositions. It feels like a complete package of every single aspect that defined the alias - the distinct supersaws and leads that early J-core was known for, with a rich high-NRG sound through the added noises, all neatly layered with the industrial hardcore kicks adding a heavy and dark punch to the overall tone. tout est bien was one of the very first doujin tracks I ever listened to back when I was first learning about the otaku subculture, so hearing it again with a name and face to remember all these years later evokes a sense of personally nostalgic gratitude.

Unfortunately, Betwixt & Between would pass away the following year, leaving behind a sizeable portion of his work that has never seen the light of day. His impact was widely felt throughout the J-core scene - HARDCORE TANO*C would soon step away from this type of J-core in favour of a more lively sound in future releases, while many of his unreleased tracks were kept under close supervision of close friend GULD. The last original track he produced and released would be So Sweet Bitter Days, a contribution to the very first Bright Colors compilation released by TANO*C at the end of 2011.

What inspired me to finally write this tribute was a comment left under the 2005 NRGetic Romancer live mix - "I often wonder how [Betwixt & Between] would have responded to the changing J-core scene as freeform and other trance-ish productions got phased out." I feel that it may be insensitive to dwell on that question any more than what has already been posited here, so I will refrain from making analyses on this comment out of respect. I will instead link a playlist containing all of his original works available on Youtube, so you can listen to a detailed record of his discography.

It is undeniable that Betwixt & Between was a significant influence towards Japanese hardcore, with his effects on the genre defining a transitional period for its sound that cannot be ignored today. Though J-core nowadays has a very different sound to the tracks composed 15 years ago, a portion of that change can be attributed to the works of trailblazers who were unbound by the limitations of pre-Internet music.

Thank you for the amazing musical talent you brought to a whole generation. May you rest in peace, Betwixt & Between.

The most-liked comment on a public Youtube upload of the album sampling masters 2 gives me some food for thought.

"the first song [Notteldam] is proof of time travel"

Having studied in the school of history for the better part of a decade at this point, it shouldn't strike you as much of a surprise that I am a very big fan of boomer shit. My favourite video game genre is rhythm games. I constantly make references to obscure anime shows only remembered in the annals of numerous homoerotic meme videos. Hell, I am literally friends with several people who ONLY know about weird esoteric shit. I am living in the depths of unknown subculture shite.

That being said, I am frequently reminded that many things in life are never made equal, and one such example is how late 90's, and early 2000s otaku culture seems to be commemorated on the modern internet. Many a video essay is dedicated to the obscure visual novels that dotted the landscape of post-AOL society, often times sold to a small handful of people at conventions you'll have never heard of in your life, but end up terraforming the entire anime scene at large through its influence. You'll see all sorts of articles about the masters for some random dogshit anime that aired once in 2003 and only survived through VHS recordings of a guy in the booth vocal chopped into yelling "SEX" in a NicoNicoDouga video. Don't even get me started on manga... I've read Onani Master Kurosawa, you know I ain't fucking around here.

But what about music? Why does nobody talk about the music?

As I listen (and frequently relisten) to the sampling masters trilogy, this question sticks out in my mind like a loose nail on an IKEA display cabinet. The history of otaku music might be comparative to other aspects in terms of its anomalous history, mainly because it takes inspiration from basically everything in contemporary existence as if some subculture ouroboros, but it's continually neglected in favour of "the banger" culture that seems to have gripped the last 23 years of audio in a death vice. People who get into doujin music through rhythm games nowadays don't even scratch the surface of how this whole microcosm started life. Rather, and I say this with a hint of dejection instead of snideness, they skim the details of the water. They slide and then sink, rather than hop, skip, and jump. It's actually a tad depressing.

I digress. On some level, I understand there's a deeper appeal for unknown anime, manga, and visual novels, that music just doesn't satisfy in the same way. Watching a video by Amelie Doree or Kenny Lauderdale makes it abundantly clear that information on these pieces of otaku history is in vogue. It's in some demand. By contrast, only the most fanatical of sickos would be remotely interested in how the roots of Japanese hardcore (now colloquially and lovingly referred to as J-core) stem almost entirely from near endless respect for revered cult classic anime, and the trailblazing EU-inspired machinations of the sampling masters crew. I get it. The history of music in general just isn't that interesting for most people.

To many in this area of internet culture, DJ SHARPNEL is a name that may not invoke much fanfare. Some may know of a few tracks, mainly through some really old Youtube uploads, but not of the Pandora's Box that such music would unleash upon the teens of the new millennium. Unbeknownst to many, it's hard to dispute that DJ SHARPNEL influenced many elements of what the genre would become today. Heavy anime-inspired aesthetics, hard-hitting (happy) hardcore kicks that really get close and personal, the blending of several other genres that would otherwise make no sense into a strange harmony - listening to the sounds of the earliest High-Speed Music Team Sharpnel releases feels like you barely left the home comfort of 2023 J-core. Take a listen to sharpnel vs. Project Gabbangelion, and I swear down people are just making this shit on Soundcloud like RIGHT NOW. It's uncannily contemporary.

Alternatively, take a look at HARDCORE TANO*C. If you play rhythm games and were born before 9/11 happened, there is a very strong chance you know of this group's existence adjacent to wider Japanese internet subculture. They're basically a household name nowadays, but you cannot talk about doujin music at all without acknowledging their contributions to J-core. The group's first release... didn't age that well, truth be told. However, Qimailla-8k is a groundbreaking shift in J-core history, because it establishes a broader spectrum of influences for bedroom producers to adopt from. No longer were tracks taking their cues from Asuka yelling ad nauseum, the most gritty of Rotterdam gabber only a mother could promote, and, uh, The Brain from Planet Arous? The spectrum was wider, the stage greater. Though the genre was used to describe Japanese artists' interpretations of the hardcore music genre, this may have well been one of the first truly internet-based music genres out there, with a whole sleuth of artists like JAKAZiD occasionally collaborating with TANO*C themselves.

So why do I write this blog post about sampling masters, DJ SHARPNEL, or HARDCORE TANO*C, when the focus of this whole thing was about a greater respect for every aspect of what makes otaku culture so unique? It's because I think many of us have lost touch with our roots. With the advent of newer, cooler fads like gacha games, Vtubers, and an increasing push towards always-online culture, it often feels like many people who were into these obscure, underlooked works have been snared by the trap of shiny things that often feel like they're coupled with an expiration date. I got nothing against any of the aforementioned, but when I look at a Youtube video discussing some underground VN I could never fathom existing in my head, the ephemerality of sampling culture reminds me of what makes these subcultures so great. It's the bizarre immemorialism of shit that should be lost. By some twist of fate, we've stumbled upon something that would have been completely wiped from all but human memory just 40 years ago.

And that's peak.

I feel like people don't appreciate the history of their internet subcultures as much, because it's boring to read about history on the internet. Whether that may be you, that's fine. Totally understandable.

I simply wish towards finer appreciation for otaku history as a whole. Perhaps that will put my sentiments towards the current internet at ease.

[real boomer shit]