Psychedelic trance or psytrance is a form of electronic music that evolved from Goa trance in the early 1990s when it first began hitting the mainstream.
The original Goa trance was often made with popular Modular synthesizers and hardware samplers, but the preference in Psychedelic trance has moved to sample manipulation and storage in VST and AU software sampler applications. The use of analog synthesizers for sound synthesis has given way to digital "virtual analog" instruments like the Nord Lead, Access Virus, Korg MS-2000, Roland JP-8000 and computer VST and AU plugins like Native Instruments Reaktor. These are usually controlled by MIDI sequencers within Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications.
Psytrance saw wide success in the Tel Aviv dance scene, and moved on to nearby places.
The name psychedelic provides an umbrella term for the many divergent styles this brand of trance has birthed, including Goa, melodic, dark, progressive and suomi. Referring to it as "psychedelic" also distinguishes the style from the 'clubbier' trance music and reinforces the roots of Goa trance in the psychedelic community.
Psychedelic trance generally has a fast tempo, in the range 140 to 150 BPM. The emphasis in psychedelic trance is placed strongly on purely synthesized timbres for programming and lead melodies.
This is a list of electronic music genres and sub-genres, though for the latter not all possess their own article (in which case, see the main genre article).
->Ambient-Ambient house is a musical category founded in the late 1980s that is used to describe acid house featuring ambient music elements and atmospheres. Tracks in the ambient house genre typically feature four-on-the-floor beats, synth pads, and vocal samples integrated in an atmospheric style. Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic center and feature much atonality along with synthesized chords
->Ambient house-Ambient house is a musical category founded in the late 1980s that is used to describe acid house featuring ambient music elements and atmospheres. Tracks in the ambient house genre typically feature four-on-the-floor beats, synth pads, and vocal samples integrated in an atmospheric style. Ambient house tracks generally lack a diatonic center and feature much atonality along with synthesized chords
->Ambient industrial-Ambient industrial is a Post-industrial music genre.
->Ambient techno-
->Dark ambient-Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of new synthesizer and sampling technology in the electronic music genre and other technical advances in music. Dark ambient is a very diverse genre; it is often closely linked with industrial music, noise, ethereal wave, and sometimes even black metal, yet can be free from any derivatives and connections to other genres or styles. The term is generally used as a catch-all for any form of ambient music that has dark, foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. ->Drone music-Drone music, also known as drone-based music, drone ambient or ambient drone, dronescape or dronology, and sometimes simply as drone, is a musical style that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tones-clusters – called drones. It is typically characterized by lengthy audio programs with relatively slight harmonic variations throughout each piece compared to other musics.
Pioneering explorers of drone music in the past 30 years have included Theater of Eternal Music (aka The Dream Syndicate), Charlemagne Palestine, Eliane Radigue, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Robert Fripp & Brian Eno, Earth, Coil, Disinformation, Sonic Boom, and Phill Niblock.
->Illbient-Illbient is a term coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in the early 1990s. The word "Illbient" is a portmanteau of the hip hop slang term "ill" (a positive expression: bad meaning good) and "ambient".
Though there are many individualistic variants of Illbient, the music is characterized by interesting dub-wise layering of soundscapes, hip hop-influenced use of samples and a progressive approach to beat programming that encompasses all genres of world groove and electronic music.
Illbient was introduced to the public at large in 1996 through the Asphodel Records Incursions in Illbient compilation and a feature in The Wire magazine.
The use of the term "Illbient" was propagated by the music press rather than the artists themselves (the notable exception to this dynamic being the music journalist Paul D. Miller aka the turntablist DJ Spooky). This disconnect has led to ambiguity about whether Illbient is merely a NYC subgenre of trip hop or a marketing gimmick used by DJ Spooky and Asphodel Records.
According to DJ Spooky, DJ Olive started an event in Brooklyn called Lalalandia. It is perhaps worth noting that DJ Spooky also claims to have invented the word Illbient in relation to the multicultural digital arts scene in Manhattan. To his credit, he released Necropolis, a mix CD in 1995 that brought together many of the artists who later claimed to have invented the term including DJ Olive. His events like Molecular at The Gas Station on Avenue B and Second street in Manhattan set the tone for later developments in the genre.
The nexus of Illbient was the Abstrakt Wave party held every Sunday night at The RV, belonging to Tim Sweet, aka Dr. Decent, a small alternative space at the corner of 6th and Avenue B in Manhattan's East Village (the space has long since been resteragentrified).
Illbient has exerted a strong influence on the Dubstep, Half Step and Hauntology genres.
Lowercase-Originally coined by minimal artist Steve Roden, lowercase is an extreme form of ambient minimalism in which very quiet sounds bookend long stretches of silence. Roden started the movement with an album entitled Forms of Paper, in which he made recordings of himself handling paper in various ways. These recordings were actually commissioned by the Hollywood branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Many artists have contributed to the lowercase movement, including electronic music pioneer and educator Kim Cascone, Tetsu Inoue and Bernhard Gunter.
Some of the labels that publish lowercase music include Bremsstrahlung Recordings [1] Trente Oiseaux, 12k, and raster-noton, which features famed composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in collaboration with Carsten Nicolai, a.k.a. Alva Noto.
->Psybient-Psybient, also known as "Ambient Psy", "Ambient Goa" and more commonly within the Goa/psytrance scene as "Psychill" & "Psydub", is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of psychedelic trance, ambient, world music, new age and even ethereal wave. It often has many dub influences and can also sound somewhat like glitch. Psybient pieces are often structured around the concept of creating a "sonic voyage" or "musical journey". Although similar to psytrance's emphasis on maintaining non-stop rhythm throughout the night, psybient is far more focused on creating a vast soundscape that can be experienced over the length of an album, focusing less on beatmatching and allowing for a myriad of tempo changes. Psybient artists include Shpongle, Entheogenic, Bluetech, Shulman, Kick Bong, The London Vampire Panic, The Mystifying Oracle and Younger Brother.
Breakbeat/Breaks
->Baltimore Club-Baltimore club, also called Baltimore breaks, Baltimore house, knucklehead, thump and Dew Doo beat, is a genre of house and dance music. A blend of hip-hop and house, it was created in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 1990s by Scottie B., Frank Ski, Miss Tony aka Big Tony and DJ Spen and has since been performed by artists such as DJ BOOMAN, Rod Lee, KW Griff, Rod Braxton, Karizma, D.J. Technics, D.J. Phinesse, Diamond K, DJ Patrick, and DJ Kenny B. Female DJ K-Swift is currently one of the most popular DJ's in Baltimore, with her radio shows on 92.3 WERQ.
Baltimore club is exemplified by its 8/4 beat structure and tempos at or near 130 beats per minute. It combines repetitive, looped vocal snippets similar to ghetto house with humorous vocal samples from television shows like Sanford and Son and Sponge Bob SquarePants, and also includes heavy breakbeats and call and response stanzas similar to those found in the go-go music of Washington, D.C.. More often than not, the breakbeats are pulled from two records; "Sing Sing" by Gaz, and "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins and James Brown. Much like the rave-era sub-genre of techno music known as breakbeat hardcore, Baltimore Club sounds as if the music was purposely produced in a hurried manner as each song is made with a limited palette of sounds and is based on similar templates
->Big beat-Big beat (sometimes called chemical breaks) is a term deployed in the mid 1990s by the British music press to describe the work of artists such as The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy.
->Broken beat-Broken beat is an electronic music genre first appearing at the end of the 20th century and pioneered by Goya Music Distribution. Appearing in the western parts of London, the genre is also referred to as West London, mainly because Goya Music's offices were in London's Ladbroke Grove, W11, as were most of the participating artists studios. Regular nights which play this genre of music include Co-op at Plastic People in Shoreditch and Inspiration Information at Notting Hill Arts Club. Elsewhere, DJs from the Kyoto Jazz Massive regularly play at The Room in Tokyo. Distribution outlet Goya Music played an influential role in establishing the early UK sound, supporting early labels such as People, Bita Sweet, Mainsqueeze and numerous others.
Artists in this area mostly have a drum and bass, house, hip hop, techno or acid jazz background. As a result of these various influences, broken beat is sometimes considered more sophisticated than regular dance music, on the scale of jazz, soul or funk. It can be characterized by syncopated rhythm typically in 4/4 metre, with staggered or punctuated snare beats and/or hand claps. Broken beat also has its roots in 70's jazz fusion and has been influenced by artists such as Lonnie Liston Smith, The Mizell Brothers (producers for Donald Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey and Johnny Hammond in the mid-70's), Herbie Hancock, George Duke, and others. One might also hear echos of Disco, 80's Rn'B (Shalamar, Prince), early Electronica (Kraftwerk), hip hop (Planet Rock), 80s New Wave (Depeche Mode, New Order), House and Techno in Broken beat.
IG Culture is credited with kick-starting the scene with his New Sector Movements releases for People Music. The transition was to a more abstract form of drum and bass. Many artists that started releasing through 4 Hero's Reinforced label are now considered as the pioneers of broken beat (a landmark artist for the label being Sonar Circle aka Domu). Meanwhile in Detroit, established techno artists like Carl Craig and Stacey Pullen experimented with the music they were making, trying to add jazz elements and breaks to their sound. As the music is still based on classic Detroit techno and usually has a harder sound, it is sometimes referred to as broken techno. This eclectic mixture was picked up by the Detroit and jazz affiliated UK techno producers Kirk Degiorgio or As One and Ian O'Brien, who tried to form it into a more soulful variation which further influenced the development of the broken beat genre.
Popular London based names are Bugz in the Attic, Seiji, Kaidi Tatham, Domu, Afronaught, IG Culture, Stephane and Alex Attias, New Zealand born Mark de Clive-Lowe, or 4 Hero (Dego and Marc Mac). Elsewhere in the UK, Manchester's Phuture Lounge collective - Daco, Jonny Miller and label boss Maddslinky (Zed Bias), who has a UK garage background, has recently moved towards a more Broken beat sound. In the U.S. prominent artists are Detroit based Titonton Duvanté, John Arnold, Jeremy Ellis aka Ayro, and Recloose (now based in New Zealand), Harlem based Spymusic, and Philadelphia based King Britt.
->Chemical breaks-Big beat (sometimes called chemical breaks) is a term deployed in the mid 1990s by the British music press to describe the work of artists such as The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy.
->Downbeat-The term Downbeat has several meanings including as a description of a beat in music, and as a genre or style of music.
->Florida breaks-Florida breaks, also referred to as Florida breakbeat and Funky Breaks, is a genre of breakbeat music which, as the name suggests, is most popular in the areas around the US state of Florida. Florida breaks were popular in the club culture of the southeast US during the mid and late 90's to early 2000's. Its sound at that time was described as 'funky' and often included recognizable samples from 80's pop, funk, and hiphop. Its current sound has a lot in common with nu skool breaks although it is also influenced by other music popular in the same area such as freestyle, electro and Miami bass. More recently Floridians have taken to calling the genre electro breaks despite the lack of electro characteristcs included in the tracks, but this is most likely due to the parallel electronic dance music sub-genre of electro bass being billed at many of the same events as Florida breaks.
->Nu skool breaks-Nu skool breaks is a form of breakbeat music genre, combining the futuristic sense of drum and bass, the sounds of techno, the bass of dub and the beats from real drummers and drum machines. The genre also prominently features electro and hip hop influences and tracks typically run at 130 to 140 bpm.
->Progressive breaks-Progressive in the context of modern dance music (occasionally progressive electronic dance music or prog) is a term that includes a collection of electronic dance music genres which draw upon the use of progressive performing techniques and includes the styles of progressive trance, progressive house, progressive techno and progressive breaks.
Most electronic dance music tracks released are produced with certain features that are favourable for DJs to beatmatch records together seamlessly. Unlike the song structures of genres like hard house or Hi-NRG, the peaks and troughs in a progressive dance track tend to be more subtle. Layering different sounds on top of each other and slowly bringing them in and out of the mix is a key idea behind the progressive movement.
The term "progressive music" was coined in the early- to mid- 1980s during the rise of the Chicago house and Detroit techno movements, to accurately describe the beginnings of electronic dance music as being the beginnings of a massive movement in popular music. Detroit techno producer Stacey Pullen said in an interview;
"Back then, the music we called house music, techno, was also called progressive music – the meaning of 'progressive' was a futuristic way of thinking about music. That was what we called progressive."[1]
Today, the term "progressive" typically refers to the structure of a track which occur incrementally, though there are other uses for the term: progressive trance usually refers to a type of trance music that features a less prominent lead melody and focuses more on atmosphere, and in the case of progressive house, the term "progressive" can also refer to the style's open mindedness to bring in new elements to the genre. These elements can be a variety of sounds, such as a guitar loop, computer generated noises, or other elements typical of other genres. Progressive electronic is also a term for a sub-genre in new age music and contains elements of progressive rock, classical music and ambient music and electronic music. It has been used to describe artists such as Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre.
->Raggacore-Raggacore is a genre of music resembling a faster version of ragga jungle, or breakcore with dancehall, ragga or reggae style basslines and vocals.
Other terms used to describe this style are yardcore or speedhall (sped up dancehall)
Some artists that have produced raggacore tracks include Cardopusher, Knifehandchop, General Malice, Bong-Ra, FFF DJ Scud, Zombieflesheater, Enduser, Venetian Snares, Shitmat, Parasite, LFO Demon, DJ K, Red Ruler, Kid 606, The Bug, Soundmurderer and Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth.
->Chiptune-Chiptune, or chip music, or micromusic is music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in realtime by a computer or video game console sound chip, instead of using sample-based synthesis. The "golden age" of chiptunes was the mid 1980s to early 1990s, when such sound chips were the most common method for creating music on computers. In their desire to create a more complex arrangement that the restrictions posed by the medium apparently allowed, composers developed creative approaches when developing their own electronic sounds. This is due to the early computer sound chips having only simple tone and noise generators imposing limitations on the complexity of the sound. The resultant chiptunes sometimes seem harsh or squeaky to the unaccustomed listener. Chiptunes are closely related to video game music. The term has also been recently applied to more recent compositions that attempt to recreate the chiptune sound, albeit with more complex technology.
->Bitpop-Bitpop is a type of electronic music, where at least part of the music is made using old 8-bit computers, game consoles and little toy instruments. Popular choices are the Commodore 64, Game Boy, Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System.
Due to its origins, bitpop is also referred to as 8-bit. The name has also been considered as a pun on britpop and the word bit.[citation needed]
Major publishers of bitpop are 8bitpeoples and Relax Beat & Bleepstreet Records. Examples of bands in the genre are Welle:Erdball, Printed Circuit, Freezepop, Tobiah, Receptors, Neotericz, 1986, Anamanaguchi, Covox, FirestARTer, capitalSTEPS (now called Square Wail), 8 Bit Weapon, 8 Bit Betty, Firebrand Boy, David Sugar, She, Death By Television, Mesu Kasumai, Coleco Music, c64 Messiah, Thermostatic, The Hardliner, ComputeHer, MelBot, Teamtendo, Machinae Supremacy, Twilight Electric, Monster & Maskiner, Mr. Pacman, Pluxus, Pontonius, Mikron 64, Puss, Nintendude, Yuppster and Nullsleep.
Some related genres are chiptune, Gamewave, Picopop, and electropop.
Disco ->Cosmic disco-Cosmic disco (also called "Cosmic music," "the Cosmic Sound," etc.) is a style of dance music named after the "Cosmic" nightclub in northern Italy, which the cosmic disco scene was centered around. The Cosmic scene's most notable DJ was Daniele Baldelli, who was hired as Cosmic's DJ in 1979; Stylus Magazine has described Baldelli and Beppe Loda as Cosmic Disco's pioneers. The Cosmic Sound included a very diverse range of musical styles, from electro and funk to jazz fusion and Brazilian music. Peter Shapiro described Baldelli's music as a "combination of spaced-out rock and tribal percussion." One genre that was usually not part of this mix was Italo disco, which Baldelli believes was generally too mainstream and commercial. The music's speed has been characterized by different sources as slow and mid-tempo; Baldelli himself states that he usually played at 90-105 bpm. Baldelli would also play 45 RPM records at 33 and vice versa. Cosmic music has been cited as a "touchstone" for contemporary "space disco" artists like Lindstr?m collaborator Prins Thomas and Andy Meecham of Chicken Lips. It has also been cited as an influence on some later Italian house songs, such as Sue?o Latino.
The Cosmic club itself was located in Lazise, a small town on Lake Garda. The club had a capacity of 1000 and decor inspired by American clubs like Odyssey 2001 (where Saturday Night Fever was filmed) and Studio 54.
->Eurodance-Eurodance is a synonymous term for European synthesizer-driven dance music which became popularized worldwide in the early- to mid-1990s. The term has come to define the European dance music genre of today.
->Euro disco-Euro-Disco (also Eurodisco or Euro-disco, or "80s European dance") is a term that was first used during the 1970s to describe a variety of non UK-based European disco pop music. Euro-disco songs, like other related genres such as Euro-pop and Euro-dance are usually lightweight, slickly produced, catchy songs with bouncy dance beats, and English-language vocals over a contrasting verse-chorus song form and later, synthesizer-based accompaniment.
The term Euro-disco is also used to refer to the styles and genres of electronic dance music that emerged from Europe in the early 1980s (most notably Italo Disco, Eurobeat and the German variation of Italo Disco, which was danced in the Discofox style). The term is often used broadly, to encompass the whole Italo-disco style (both Italian and non-Italian productions), some European New Wave productions, the British Eurobeat hits (most of them marketed as "Hi-NRG" in America), some early 1980s Canadian Disco productions, Spacesynth and many 1980s Europop hits with a dance flavor.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the italian Italo Disco music fans began using the term "Euro-disco" to describe the non-Italian italo disco productions from the mid-to late 1980s, especially those from Germany. Decades before, during 1979-1984, the term "rock electronico" used in Italy for some music styles, including what later would became "Italo Disco" and Space Synth.
In the 2000s, the term "70s Eurodisco" is used to refer to the original 1970s use of the term, and "80s Eurodisco" is used to describe the non-UK based European dance music productions of the 1980s and the very early 1990s, especially those from Eastern Europe.
->Hi-NRG-The name "Hi-NRG" (without the "Disco") was first mentioned in the UK music magazine Record Mirror in 1983, which championed the gay underground sound and which also published a weekly Hi-NRG Chart. The first ever "Hi-NRG" record to hit the UK's Top 100 was Hazell Dean's "Searching (I Got To Find A Man)", released on Proto Records. However, the term "Hi-NRG" was brought to mass attention by Evelyn Thomas's hit, "High Energy" (1984), produced by Ian Levine in London. Hi-NRG is typified by an energetic staccato sequenced synthesizer sound where the bass often takes the place of the hi-hat (alternating a more resonant note with a dampened note to signify the tempo of the record). There is often heavy use of the clap sound found on drum machines. DJ/Producer, Patrick Cowley first made Hi-NRG music popular at the The EndUp in San Francisco in 1982. At the time, this music style didn't have a specific name. During 1984 the music began to crossover into the mainstream pop charts in the United Kingdom and the United States, largely due to the success of the Record Shack record label.
The label Record Shack also enjoyed chart success with tracks by Break Machine, Miquel Brown and an unlikely comeback single by Eartha Kitt ("Where Is My Man", 1984) which proved to be a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Stock Aitken Waterman were Hi-NRG producers at the start of their career, working with Divine and Hazell Dean, and producing the most successful Hi-NRG track, Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", which reached number one on the UK Singles chart and the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S.. SAW's music style on the next years, would involved to "eurobeat". Hi-NRG was largely superseded by House music by 1990, but still enjoys an underground following, usually in the form of Hi-NRG versions of mainstream pop hits. The second generation of Hi-NRG that emerged during the 1990s is a major force in the Club/Dance music world thanks to a several essential Hi-NRG artists. Those artists are RuPaul, Kristine W, Abigail, Nicki French, Lonnie Gordon, Kym Sims and more recently, Sean Ensign. Its basic production has remained nearly the same. However, the rhythms and synths used sound different as it is usually edgier. As with most Hi-NRG, it still emphisizes vocal personality. Next to no Hi-NRG songs are intrumental.
Many of the Hi-NRG tracks produced in Europe at the time qualify doubly as examples of Italo disco (i.e., Taffy, Magazine 60, , Roni Griffith, etc.) and discofox (i.e. Linda Jo Rizzo, Lian Ross, Modern Talking, Fancy, Lift Up, Blue System, Bad Boys Blue.)
->Italo dance-Italodance, 'Nu Italo Disco', 'Nu-Italo' or just 'Italo' is a derivate of the Eurodance genre which became popular in Europe in the late 1990s to early 2000s.->Italo disco-Italo disco is a very wide term that refers to various types of European disco and pop-styled dance music, that evolved during the early 1980s in Italy, Germany, Spain and other parts of Europe. Italo Disco music has a distinct, futuristic and spacey sound which was created using synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. During the 1980s, the term "Italo-disco" used in Europe to describe all the non UK-based dance productions, including some Canadian ones. In the UK and the USA, Italo-disco was virtually unknown to the mainstream consumer and existed only underground.->Spacesynth-Spacesynth, also known as synthdance and spacedance, is a modern U.S.A. term to describe various 1980s music styles of European electronic dance music, emerge from a 70s Eurodisco music style, called Space Disco. Most tracks are completely instrumental and are focused on upbeat futuristic, science fiction and epic battle scene style themes with driving basslines and catchy synthesizer riffs. The genre began in the late 1970s as Space Disco and lasted until the early 1990s. The French electronic rock band Rockets pioneered the genre, releasing some disco hits from 1978 to 1981. Since the genre's decline it has gone underground, with new albums being published by a number of European independent record labels.
->Synthpop-Synthpop is a subgenre of New Wave in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It is most closely associated with the era between the late 1970s and early to middle 1980s, although it has continued to exist and develop ever since. Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra are often hailed as the pioneers of the style.
Downtempo->Acid jazz-Acid jazz (also known as club jazz) is a musical genre that combines elements of soul music, funk, disco, particularly looping beats and modal harmony.[1]. It developed over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance/pop music. Acid Jazz is also the name of a recording label in the United Kingdom (founded by Gilles Peterson & Eddie Pillar) which issues recordings by artists in the genre.
While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition (sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz interpretation as part of their performance. The compositions of groups such as The Brand New Heavies and Incognito often feature chord structures usually associated with Jazz music. The Heavies in particular were known in their early years for beginning their songs as catchy pop and rapidly steering them into jazz territory before "resolving" the composition and thus not losing any pop listeners but successfully "exposing" them to jazz elements in "baby steps".
The acid jazz "movement" is also seen as a "revival" of jazz-funk or jazz fusion or soul jazz by leading DJs such as Norman Jay or Gilles Peterson or Patrick Forge, also known as "rare groove crate diggers".
->Balearic Beat-Balearic Beat or Balearic House was an eclectic blend of DJed dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s.It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic Beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza," even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island.
UK disc jockeys Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling are commonly credited with having "discovered" Balearic Beat in 1986 while on holiday in Ibiza. Reportedly, they were introduced to the music at Amnesia, an Ibizan nightclub, by DJ Alfredo from Argentina, who had a residency there.
The early-1990s Balearic Beat sound was typified by a distinctive, relatively heavy, slow (90–110 bpm), R&B-influenced beat consisting of bass drum, snare, and hi-hats (often produced with a Roland TR-909 drum machine) programmed in certain laid-back, swing-beat patterns; plus soul, Latin, African, funk, and dub affectations; and production techniques borrowed from other styles of dance music that were popular at the time. Vocals were sometimes present, but much of the music was instrumental. The sounds of acoustic instruments such as guitar and piano were sometimes incorporated into Balearic Beat. Major artists credited with popularizing this form of Balearic Beat include Soul II Soul and Enigma.
Having been primarily associated with a particular percussion pattern that eventually fell out of vogue, the style eventually faded from prominence, and its repertoire was subsumed by the more general "chill out" and "downtempo" genres.
Ibiza is still considered by some to have its own 'sound,' however, including among others the music of Jens Gad, co-creator of Enigma, and his new chillout-world-influenced hybrid project, Achillea, recorded in his studio in the hills overlooking Ibiza. Compilations such as Global Lounge Sessions: The Balearic Sound of Ibiza, released in 2002, and Sequoia Groove's Buddha-Lounge series, continue to be released. These generally feature house music and certain downtempo selections, not the old style of Balearic Beat, per se. Some prefer to use the term more generally, however, to apply to all of these styles.
->Chill out-Chill out (sometimes chillout), a term derived from a slang injunction to relax, emerged in the early and mid-1990s as a catch-all term for various styles of relatively mellow, slow-tempo music made by contemporary producers in the electronic music scene. The term "Chill out music", as well as the genre itself, originated in chill rooms that were set up by DJs off to the edge of club dance floors to give patrons a chance to take a break from the hectic dance vibe and chill out with this style of music. In these rooms, visitors would find couches, comfy pillows, psychedelic light shows projecting trippy images and music that was decidedly downtempo, especially when compared to what was going on a few feet away on the dance floor. The UK's Higher Intelligence Agency (the HIA) helped move the chill room concept from sideshow to main event with their Oscillate chill party events in Birmingham and elsewhere in the early to mid nineties. Their first releases came out on the now defunct Beyond record label and soon thereafter in the U.S. on the Waveform label - who describes the music as 'exotic electronica.'
A number of compilations with "Chill Out" in their titles were released in the mid-1990s and beyond, helping to establish the genre as being very closely related to downtempo and trip hop but also incorporating, especially in the early 2000s, slower varieties of house music, nu-jazz, psybient, and lounge music. The genre also includes some forms of trance music, ambient music, and IDM, and it has entirely subsumed the older genre Balearic Beat, although that term is still used interchangeably with chill out. Chill out (sometimes called "soft techno") is generally tonal, relaxing (or at least not as "intense" as other music from the styles it draws from), and generally does not incorporate music that emphasizes "hard," "deep," or particularly hypnotic rhythms, although when used to describe the music played in chillout rooms at raves, it can also encompass extremely psychedelic experimental sounds of great variety.
An entire culture surrounding chill out music has evolved, with many fashionable bars and clubs, designed with a retro or futuristic ambience, devoted to the genre. Ministry of Sound in London has hosted many chill out events in places such as Ibiza and there are hundreds of mix compilation titles including the words "chill out" or just "chill" that cater for the chill out audience. As of 2005 "chill out" is recognized by all major UK dance magazines and their charts.
The chill out styles are similar to the Leftfield scene inspired by the group of that name. There are many bands that make chill out music, such as A Man Called Adam, Lemon Jelly, Urban Myth Club, Mooli, Sundae Club and the Chillage People; DJs that specialise in chill out like Youth, Alex Paterson, Dr. Chill, Unity Dub, The Only Michael, Chris Coco, Pete Lawrence and Mixmaster Morris, the latter known for having released Global Chillage; record labels like Liquid Sound Design, Vagalume, Ultimae, Waveform and Interchill; radio stations such as Groovera, Soma FM, radioioAMBIENT, Musical Starstreams; and events such as The Big Chill and Sundaze. Often music is mixed with video art mixed by VJs with gentle, relaxing images of nature or electronic graphics.
The Big Chill festival is a large annual event catering for chilled out clubbers and families in Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire with resident acts including Gilles Peterson and Norman Jay.
->Minimal Electronica-Minimal electronica is a musical genre containing elements of other electronic genres, such as ambient and glitch.
The style of music, produced, for example, by Pan sonic, is that which allows easy focus on simple rhythmic elements that seem to be made of the most necessary sounds in order to create momentum that flows with long tonal passages. Every element of sound in minimal electronica is usually very clear, and therefore works in this genre are usually very well crafted with great attention to detail.
Monolake has produced works that could be considered minimal electronica.
->Glitch-Glitch (also known as Clicks and Cuts from a representative compilation series by the German record label Mille Plateaux) is a genre of electronic music that became popular in the late 1990s with the increasing use of digital signal processing, particularly on computers. Often considered a sub-genre of electronica or intelligent dance music, Glitch eschews traditional instrumentation, preferring instead the use of mechanized and non-natural sounds. Though rhythm is a central focal point of Glitch, the style's various sub-genres range from the ambient to the dance-oriented. [1]
Glitch is often produced on computers using modern digital production software to splice together small "cuts" (samples) of music from previously recorded works. These cuts are then integrated with the signature of Glitch music: beats comprised of glitches, clicks, scratches, and otherwise "erroneously" produced or sounding noise. These glitches are often very short, and are typically used in place of traditional percussion or instrumentation. Skipping CDs, scratched vinyl records, circuit bending, and other noise-like distortions figure prominently into the creation of rhythm and feeling in Glitch; it is from the use of these digital artifacts that the genre derives its name. However, not all artists of the genre are working with erroneously produced sounds or are even using digital sounds.
Popular software for creating Glitch includes trackers, Reaktor, Audiomulch, Bidule, Super Collider, Ableton Live, GleetchLAB, MAX/MSP, Pure Data, and ChucK. Circuit bending -- the intentional short-circuiting of low power electronic devices to create new musical devices -- also plays a significant role on the hardware end of Glitch music and its creation.
->Nu jazz-Nu jazz is an umbrella term coined in the late 1990s to refer to music styles that blend jazz textures and sometimes jazz instrumentation, funk, electronic dance music, and free improvisation. Also written nu-jazz or NuJazz, it is sometimes called electronic jazz, electro-jazz, e-jazz, jazztronica, jazz house, phusion, or future jazz.
->Trip Hop (aka The Bristol Sound)-Trip hop (also known as the Bristol sound or Bristol acid rap) is a term coined by music journalist Andy Pemberton in the UK magazine Mixmag to describe the hip hop instrumental "In/Flux", a 1993 single by DJ Shadow, and other similar tracks released on the Mo' Wax label and being played in London clubs at the time. "In/Flux", with its mixed up bpms, spoken word samples, strings, melodies, bizarre noises, phat bass, and slow beats, gave the listener the impression they were on a musical trip.[1] The trip hop description was applied to the musical trend in the mid-1990s of downtempo electronic music that grew out of England's hip hop and house scenes. Sometimes characterized by a reliance on breakbeats and a sample-heavy, often moody sound pioneered by Coldcut's remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full", trip hop gained notice via popular artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Bj?rk, Thievery Corporation, and rock-influenced sound groups such as Ruby, California's DJ Shadow, and the UK's Howie B. Morcheeba, originating from Hythe in Kent, Londoners Glideascope and New York's Bowery Electric are also often associated with this sound. The latest additions to this line of performers are Jem and Australia's Spook. The Bristol Sound came out of the wider Bristol Urban Culture scene.
->Turntablism-Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer. The term was created in 1994 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who actually performs, by touching and moving the records to manipulate sound. The word was never meant to be the actual title of the art form. It was regularly stated as an example, while explaining the need for a new word to describe a newly emerging and totally unique instrumental artform. The intention was for the original creators of the artform to confer, and decide on a title. While the idea of the need for a new word spread, some DJs just began to use the example word "turntablist" before the originators had a chance to proclaim an actual title.
DJ Babu has defined a turntablist as "One who has the ability to improvise on a phonograph turntable. One who uses the turntable in the spirit of a musical instrument;" while the Battlesounds documentary film suggests a definition of :"A musician, a hip-hop disc jockey who in a live/spontaneous situation can manipulate or restructure an existing phonograph recording (in combination with an audio mixer) to produce or express a new composition that is unrecognisable from its original ingredients."
Hip-hop Turntablist DJs use turntable techniques like beat mixing/matching, scratching, and beat juggling. Turntablism is generally focused more on turntable technique and less on mixing. Some turntablists seek to have themselves recognized as legitimate musicians capable of interacting and improvising with other performers.
Electronic Music
->Berlin School-The Berlin School of electronic music, or just Berlin School, was a development of electronic music in the 1970s, shaped by Berlin-based artists like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel. The style is characterized by soaring electric guitar or synthesizer melodies in high-register accompanied by complex, shifting sequencer bass lines. The lead soloist's warm, human improvisations were counterpoint to the cold, robotic precision of the bass-lines. Sound effects such as wind, and washes of Mellotron choir, flute, or strings were often added for color. Experimental or ambient stretches were not rare either, especially as intros. Most works were instrumental, vocals were used sparingly.
Vintage Berlin School tracks typically ran about twenty or thirty minutes, filling one side of a vinyl LP. The genre was so thoroughly identified with the long form that a general shift to shorter pieces in the 1980's seemed to herald the death of the movement. After the coming of the compact disc "retro" artists were no longer limited by the need to flip over a vinyl record. Some newer works run continuously as a single track for almost 80 minutes.
An outgrowth of Krautrock, Berlin School was so named because most of its early practitioners were based out of Berlin, Germany. The genre's identification with space music made it distinct from the more percussive and rhythm-oriented Düsseldorf School which included Can, Cluster, Kraftwerk, and Neu!.
Berlin School was and still is a relatively self-contained style that has not had nearly the impact on music in general that Kraftwerk has had on synth pop and techno, but ambient, electronica, New Age, and trance are partially rooted in Berlin School. The genre is sometimes considered a sub-branch of New Age or ambient, though it predates the widespread usage of both terms.
->Electroacoustic-The terms Electroacoustics and its sub-discipline Electroacoustic music have been used to describe several different sonic and musical genres or musical techniques.
While generally seen as the superset of electronic music, the definition and characteristics of electroacoustic music have been subject to much debate.
Electroacoustic music is a diverse field. Important centers of research and composition can be found around the world, and there are numerous conferences and festivals which present electroacoustic music, notably the International Computer Music Conference, the International Conference on New interfaces for musical expression, the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Festival (Bourges, France), and the Ars Electronica Festival (Linz, Austria).
A number of national associations promote the art form, notably the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) in Canada, SEAMUS in the US, ACMA in Australasia and the Sonic Arts Network in the UK. The Computer Music Journal and Organised Sound are the two most important journals dedicated to electroacoustic studies, while several national associations produce print and electronic publications.
Electro ->Dirty electronic-Dirty electronic is a style of electronic music produced using distorted/gritty synthesizer and drum machine sounds, while maintaining a lead-vocal-driven pop song structure. Lyrics often contain controversial/offensive lyrics. A cousin of Synthpop, Electroclash, Industrial and, in some ways, Nerdcore, this genre of music is also often characterized by its vocal frustration with the current influence of conservatism and Christianity in the United States.
Mark Nicholas founded the record label Dirty Electronic in 2006 as a means to release this new style of music to the public.
->Electro backbeat (aka anthem breaks)-Electro backbeat (anthem backbeats or anthem breaks) is a term used to describe a diversion from the collection of sub-genres of electronic music, usually characterized by the use of a 4/4 drum pattern. This pattern is accompanied by a loud bass, with synthesizers and various other instruments supplying the ambient effect of a composition. These rhythms may be characterized by their use of syncopation and polyrhythms.
->Electroclash-Electroclash describes a style of fashion, music, and attitude that fuses New Wave, punk, and electronic dance music with somewhat campy and absurdist post-industrial detachment in addition to vampy and/or camp sexuality. The movement combines the 1980s electropop/New Wave/Italo disco sound by means of synthesizers and drum machines. Visuals that are affiliated with electroclash often resemble or directly allude to post-1970s Westwood and Warhol fashion/art scenes, the mid-'70s, Kraftwerk-ian German influences and early-'80s New York Downtown dystopian avant-garde à la Liquid Sky.
->Electro funk-Electro, short for electro funk (also known as robot hip hop and Electro hop) is an electronic style of hip hop directly influenced by Kraftwerk and funk records (unlike earlier rap records which were closer to disco). Records in the genre typically have electronic sounds and some vocals are delivered in a deadpan, mechanical manner often through a vocoder or other electronic distortion.
->Electropop-Electropop (also called Technopop) is a form of synth pop music that is made with synthesizers, and which first flourished from 1978 to 1981. Electropop laid the groundwork for a mass market in chart-oriented synthpop, but later became seen by musicologists as merely a subgenre of synthpop.[citation needed] Numerous bands have since carried on the electropop tradition into the 1990s and 2000s.
Electropop is different from synthpop because it is often characterised by a cold, robotic, electronic sound, which was largely due to the early limitations of the analog synthesizers used to make the music. The alienated deadpan lyrics usually have a science-fiction edge to them, and do not use the "boy meets girl, boy loses girl" theme that was so common among mass-market chart-topping new wave synthpop from about 1981 onwards.
Most electropop songs are pop songs at heart, often with simple, catchy hooks and dance beats, but differing from those of electronic dance music genres which electropop helped to inspire — techno, dub, house, electroclash, etc. — in that strong songwriting is emphasized over simple danceability.
->Freestyle music-Freestyle or Latin Freestyle, also called Latin Hip Hop in its early years, is a form of electronic music that is heavily influenced by Latin American culture. Performers such as Safire, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, TKA, George Lamond, and Expose are notable performers of this genre. Freestyle originated in New York in the early 80's. It continues to be produced today and enjoys some degree of popularity, especially in urban Latino and Italian American communities. Another popular modern dance music genre, Florida breaks, evolved from this sound.
The music first developed primarily in New York City and Miami in the mid-1980s. It eventually spread to many other cities with Hispanic populations. Initially, it was a fusion of the vocal styles found in 1970s disco music with the syncopated, synthetic instrumentation of 1980s electro, as favored by fans of breakdancing. It was also influenced by sampling, as found in hip hop music. In the 1990s, the electro and hip hop influences were supplanted by house music.
->Miami bass-Miami bass (also known as booty music, a term that may also include other genres, such as dirty rap), is a type of hip hop music that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It is known for applying the Roland TR-808 sustained kick drum, slightly higher dance tempos, and occasionally sexually explicit lyrical content. Music author Richie Unterberger has characterized Miami bass as using rhythms with a "stop start flavor" and "hissy" cymbals with lyrics that "reflected the language of the streets, particularly black Miami ghettos such as Liberty City" . Miami bass has never had consistent mainstream acceptance, but has had a profound impact on the development of drum and bass, Baltimore Club, Southern rap, funk carioca, and other genres of music.
Unterberger has called James (Maggotron) McCauley (also known as DXJ, Maggozulu 2, Planet Detroit and Bass Master Khan), the "father of Miami bass". But, strangely enough, Maggotron claims even by his own admittance that he is not the "father" of Miami bass - a claim that Unterberger makes in his book. James McCauley admits that Unterberger clearly misquotes him and that it is not him but “Amos Larkins who should be called the Father of Miami Bass "bar none, no exceptions, hands down”. In the 80s, the focus of Miami bass was on the DJs and record producers rather than the performers. Record labels like Pandisc were also well-known. "Bass Rock Express" by MC ADE music and beats produced by Amos Larkins is often credited as the first Miami bass record that gained underground popularity on an international scale.
Luther 'Luke Skyywalker' Campbell, of the crew 2 Live Crew, did the most to popularize Miami bass in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are, released in 1986, became controversial for sexually explicit and profane lyrics. The 1989 As Nasty As They Wanna Be, and its hit single "Me So Horny", was even more controversial and led to legal troubles for 2 Live Crew and retailers; all charges were eventually overturned on appeal.
Miami bass popularity was in part successful due to the promotion it received in the South Florida area by local DJs, radio and clubs. [citation needed] For the better part of the mid 80’s to early 90’s DJs such as Luke Skyywalker’s Ghetto Style DJs, Norberto Morales’ Triple M DJs, Space Funk DJ's, Mohamed Moretta, DJ Nice & Nasty, Felix Sama, Ramon Hernandez, Lazaro Mendez and others were heavily involved in playing Miami bass at local outdoor events to large audiences at area beaches, parks, and fairs. Clubs in South Florida including Pac-Jam, Superstars Rollertheque, Bass Station, Studio 183, Randolphs, Nepenthe, Video Powerhouse, Skylight Express, Beat Club and Club Boca were hosting bass nights on a regular basis. Radio airplay and programming support was strong in the now defunct Rhythm 98, as well as WEDR, and WPOW (Power 96).
Disco Rick debuted with the Gucci Crew first in 1986 and then later released The Dogs album in 1988, and after that signed a solo deal with Luke Records in 1993 and created a hit single "Wiggle Wiggle". Disco Rick has been the first bass artist that turned into well known studio engineer and producer outside of the genre of bass music, opening doors for others to come work with him. By bringing "Bone Thugs-N-Harmony" in changed Miami significantly when they worked with Disco Rick and he produced a bass track on the Mo Thugs album called "Its All Good". Later, Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz came to Miami at the same studio to work with Disco Rick on first single of "Kings Of Krunk". Crunk thus may be viewed as a sub-genre of Miami bass.
Another well known sub-genre of Miami bass is "car audio bass" with artists such as Techmaster P.E.B., DJ Magic Mike, Beat Dominator, Bass 305, Underground Bass Masters, Bass Mekanik, Quad Force, Bass Patrol, MC ADE, and many others. This style of Miami bass features an even more stripped down and bass heavy sound,tending to focus on either extremely hard 909 kicks combined with sine waves or the classic 808 kick,or sometimes just the sine wave by itself as the main focus of the track. Some would argue that the car audio bass movement is what made car audio in itself gain so much popularity in the late 80s/early 90s.
Miami bass is closely related to the modern genres of Ghettotech and Booty House, genres which combine Detroit techno and Chicago house with the Miami bass sound. Ghettotech follows the same sexually oriented lyrics, hip-hop basslines and streetwise attitude but with harder, uptempo Roland TR-909 techno-style kick beats.
->Synth rock-Synth rock is a descriptive phrase applied to the work of a variety of musical artists. Principally, these artists share in the use of intentionally artificial sounds, produced through synthesizers, samplers and drum machines. The term "Synth rock" also serves as a musical genre classification, but synth rock music can also be categorized under different genres. Synth Rock closely resembles and is related to Synth Pop
UK garage (UKG)
Speed garage-UK garage (also known as UKG or just garage) refers to several different varieties of modern electronic dance music generally connected to the evolution of house in the UK in the mid 1990s. Usage of the term "garage" is different in the US to in the UK, where it refers to the 1980s New York house movement.
The evolution of house music in the UK in the mid 1990s led to the term, as previously coined by the Paradise Garage DJs, being applied to a new form of music also known as speed garage. In the late nineties the term UK garage was settled upon by the scene. This style is now frequently combined with other forms of music like hip hop, rap and R&B, all broadly filed under the description urban music. The correct pronunciation of UK garage is IPA: [?ɡ?r?d?] (rather than the American pronunciation [ɡ??rɑ:?]), as this is the most common pronunciation of the word in the British Isles.
Artists like DJ Luck and MC Neat, Oxide and Neutrino, So Solid Crew , Ms. Dynamite, Lisa Maffia, The Artful Dodger and numerous others have made garage music mainstream in the UK, whilst Dizzee Rascal's and Wiley's arrival raised the profile of grime, an offshoot of garage. However on the East London underground scene garage is distinctly different, it has a much more raw sound, placing a greater emphasis on electronic beats and rhythms.
"'Garage' is one of the most mangled terms in dance music. The term derives from the Paradise Garage itself, but it has meant so many different things to so many different people that unless you're talking about a specific time and place, it is virtually meaningless. Part of the reason for this confusion (aside from various journalistic misunderstandings and industry misappropriations) is that the range of music played at the Garage was so broad. The music we now call 'garage' has evolved from only a small part of the club's wildly eclectic soundtrack." -- Frank Broughton/Bill Brewster in Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
2-step garage-UK garage (also known as UKG or just garage) refers to several different varieties of modern electronic dance music generally connected to the evolution of house in the UK in the mid 1990s. Usage of the term "garage" is different in the US to in the UK, where it refers to the 1980s New York house movement.
The evolution of house music in the UK in the mid 1990s led to the term, as previously coined by the Paradise Garage DJs, being applied to a new form of music also known as speed garage. In the late nineties the term UK garage was settled upon by the scene. This style is now frequently combined with other forms of music like hip hop, rap and R&B, all broadly filed under the description urban music. The correct pronunciation of UK garage is IPA: [?ɡ?r?d?] (rather than the American pronunciation [ɡ??rɑ:?]), as this is the most common pronunciation of the word in the British Isles.
Artists like DJ Luck and MC Neat, Oxide and Neutrino, So Solid Crew , Ms. Dynamite, Lisa Maffia, The Artful Dodger and numerous others have made garage music mainstream in the UK, whilst Dizzee Rascal's and Wiley's arrival raised the profile of grime, an offshoot of garage. However on the East London underground scene garage is distinctly different, it has a much more raw sound, placing a greater emphasis on electronic beats and rhythms.
"'Garage' is one of the most mangled terms in dance music. The term derives from the Paradise Garage itself, but it has meant so many different things to so many different people that unless you're talking about a specific time and place, it is virtually meaningless. Part of the reason for this confusion (aside from various journalistic misunderstandings and industry misappropriations) is that the range of music played at the Garage was so broad. The music we now call 'garage' has evolved from only a small part of the club's wildly eclectic soundtrack." -- Frank Broughton/Bill Brewster in Last Night A DJ Saved My Life
->Breakstep (aka Breakbeat garage)-Breakstep is a breakbeat influenced side of garage - originally called breakbeat garage, now more often referred to as 'breakstep.' This sound is not to be confused with dubstep, although there is some cross-over between artists.
Breakstep evolved from the 2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it incorporated downtempo drum & bass style basslines, trading the shuffle of 2-step for a more straight forward breakbeat drum pattern. The breakthrough for this style came in 1999 from DJ Deekline's 'I Don't Smoke' selling 15,000 units on Rat Records until eventually being licenced to EastWest in 2000 and climbing the top 40 UK chart to number 11. Following this came DJ Zinc's '138 Trek,' an experiment with drum & bass production at UK garage tempo (138 bpm). This instigated a dialog between breaks and garage producers, with Forward>> playing host to Zed Bias and Oris Jay (aka Darqwan). They were mirrored in breaks by producers like DJ Quest, Osmosis and Ed209. Current descendants of these artists include Toasty Boy, Marlow, Mark One, Search & Destroy, Quiet Storm, DJ Distance, Reza, Blackmass Plastics and Warlock, many of whom are associated with Destructive Recordings or Storming Productions.
->Dubstep-Dubstep is a genre of electronic music which has its roots in London's early 2000s UK garage scene. The genre's name was coined by Ammunition Promotions. Musically, dubstep is distinguished by its dark mood, sparse rhythms, and emphasis on bass. In late 2005 and early 2006, dubstep steadily became more popular, expanding beyond small, local scenes thanks to coverage in music magazines such as The Wire, as well as the internet. Interest in dubstep grew after BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs began championing the genre, devoting a show to it, entitled "Dubstep Warz", in January 2006. By October 2006, the genre was being covered by the Daily Telegraph, which wrote of "the latest development in British dance music... yet another sound stemming from London's garage scene, a bass-heavy instrumental form rather confusingly known as Dubstep."
->Grime (aka Sublow/8bar/Eskibeat)-Grime is a sub-genre of urban music which first emerged in London in the early 2000s, primarily a development of UK garage, drum and bass, dancehall and hip hop.
Hardcore
->4-beat-4-beat (also known as hardcore or happy hardcore) is a breakbeat style of music that emerged around 1993. It evolved from breakbeat hardcore emanating from the United Kingdom rave scene. Due to the sheer scale of the United Kingdom rave scene, the popularity this particular music was largely limited to England where it almost in its entirety was produced and played.
Breakbeat hardcore was originally referred to a simply hardcore by ravers in England. As such, this evolved style was also alternatively known as hardcore or happy hardcore — the latter meaning a happier variant of this aforementioned breakbeat styled hardcore, thus happy hardcore (i.e. happy breakbeat). Darkcore was the short lived counter-movement to happy that occurred at the same time.
The name happy hardcore should not be confused with other things that are also referred to as happy hardcore, as that term is much shared (and overused) across the world to describe different sounding things that have their own development.
Also in this article, 4-beat is not a musical term commonly used to describe a drum beat time signature found in most types of modern music, but is rather a specific name used to describe a breakbeat music style.
->Bouncy techno-Bouncy techno (also known as happy gabber, funcore, or tartan techno - see terminology) is a rave hardcore dance music style that developed from around 1992, mostly emanating from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Originally, it was influenced by the music found in the scene in the north of the United Kingdom (Scotland, North East England and Northern Ireland), where European (mostly from Belgium and Italy) produced techno was widely played.
A combination of techno staccato riffs with off-beat stabs at a fast tempo, this basic sounding hardcore music popularized by record producer Scott Brown was prominent in the north United Kingdom rave scene and soon in the Netherlands, with the Dutch similarly producing large quantities of this lighter more melodious gabber-like style. [1] By the mid-1990s, this music would change the English happy hardcore breakbeat-driven style away from its breakbeat hardcore origins, more-or-less becoming a happier variant of bouncy techno.
->Breakbeat Hardcore-Breakbeat hardcore (popularly known as rave music, originally referred to as simply hardcore in the United Kingdom, with oldskool hardcore a common term in the 21st century) is a style of electronic music that primarily uses breakbeats for its rhythm lines. It was an early 1990s offshoot of the acid house scene of late 1980s Britain and was the precursor to various genres including jungle/drum and bass and happy hardcore.
->Breakcore-Breakcore is a loosely defined extreme electronic music style that brings together elements of jungle, hardcore techno, IDM, mashup, industrial music and noise into a breakbeat-oriented sound that encourages speed, complexity and maximum sonic density.
->Darkcore-Darkcore is a music genre that became popular in the United Kingdom hardcore rave scene in 1993. It is recognized as being one of the direct precursors of the modern electronic music genre known as drum and bass. Darkcore was a counter movement to the happy alternative that occurred at the same time - both styles evolving from breakbeat hardcore.
->Digital hardcore-Digital hardcore is a music genre or musical style that, in basic terms, fuses elements of hardcore punk with electronica. It developed in Germany during the early 1990s.
->Freeform hardcore-Freeform Hardcore is a form of Hard Dance introduced in 1999 that is an offshoot of a subgenre Happy Hardcore. The name "Freeform" was given by DJ Sharkey of the Nu Energy Collective, who along with several other DJs, most notably Kevin Energy, forged the new genre. The sound is quite experimental and has plenty of freedom in structure as you see in other 'free' musical genres such as freeform jazz, broken beat or wonky techno.
The first official freeform track was Ultraworld 5 By DJ Eclipse, which featured on the second installment of the widely popular Bonkers compilation series. Freeform began as a closely related offshoot of Happy Hardcore, borrowing much of its structure and sound. A satisfactory, if somewhat inaccurate, way of describing this early Freeform is as fast tempo Hardcore with added elements of Hard Trance. Given the nature of the genre, it was not long before it developed into its own highly unique and distinct musical style with a strong following. The DJs that produced Freeform continued to experiment, forever searching for that new sound, and a myriad of differing sounds and almost sub-genres of Freeform itself began to develop. Currently it is split into three primary streams, UK Freeform, NuNRG and FiNRG (or Finnish Freeform).
UK Freeform, having evolved directly from Hardcore, still relates closely to it (4-beat, bouncy techno) and quite often is more melodic. Lyrics are more common place in UK Freeform, but are certainly far less pervasive than they are in Hardcore. Earlier UK Freeform, particularly, was devoid of lyrics, especially those produced by DJs such as Kevin Energy and K-Complex, who had come to produce Freeform from Hard Trance and Hard House backgrounds, rather than Hardcore. Recently, however, UK Freeform has seen a resurgance in vocalists, with Sharkey teaming up with Suzi Ankhah to produce songs such as Dual Illumination, and Arkitech with his vocalist Amy who appears in many songs. The preferred vocals, to date, have been more akin to traditional Trance anthems, but very recent Freeform featured on the sixteenth release in the Bonkers series and the third release in the Hardcore Heaven series have featured vocalists employing Happy Hardcore style lyrics, even by such producers as Kevin Energy. This newer, cheesier, bouncier style of UK Freeform is being spearheaded by two labels primarily; Future Dance and Thin 'N' Crispy. The former is the brainchild of DJs Ethos and Stormtrooper, the latter DJ Robbie Long, who also plays heavily with Stormtrooper. This style of Freeform is rather popular amongst Hardcore producers, and quite often a few scattered songs will appear on otherwise Hardcore compilations. Even well renowned Hardcore producer Scott Brown has dabbled with this style.
FiNRG is much more closely related to Psy Trance and Acid Trance. It developed later than UK Freeform, its formation officially marked in 2002 with the collaboration of DJs Karri K, Nemes and Carbon Based, traditionally playing Psy Trance and Acid Trance. Later they were joined by Alek Száhala and DJ RX in 2003, who added their own flavour to the style, which was comparatively harder than the earlier productions. FiNRG is typically broader in scope than UK Freeform, from dark and evil, to psychedelic and energised, to uplifting anthems akin to up tempo Hard Trance. There are a great deal of similarities between UK Freeform and FiNRG, as one would expect since the former is where the Finnish DJs drew their inspiration. Many of the synths employed by UK and Finnish producers alike are similar, if not identical, but it is the way in which they are utilised which really draws the lines of distinction between the two styles. While UK Freeform producers typically use Acidic and Psychedelic synths to highlight and enchance frantic, hard driving sections of songs, Finnish producers are more inclined to base the entirety of the song on them, and to focus instead on the complexity and depth of the music. That being said, both of the two styles are, virtually, open in style, as the name Freeform suggests, and there are countless exceptions.
NuNRG is the most recent style that is slowly emerging. As with all things Freeform, it is an highly amorphous style and somewhat difficult to define. This is particularly so because of all the Freeform styles it is the most experimental and almost entirely without boundaries. It is both a combination of UK Freeform and FiNRG, as well as employing a wide variety of musical tidbits from a plethora of genres, including, but not restricted to, Hardcore, Hard Trance, Acid Trance, Psy Trance, Hard House, Hard NRG, Drum 'n' Bass and Breakbeat. Headline Freeform DJs from both countries, including Sharkey, K-Complex, Kevin Energy, Alek Szahala, Carbon Based, RX and many more have been producing songs in this style, but the pioneers of the style are A.M.S, CLSM, with his self titled record label, Asa & S1 and DJ Impact. Anything from upbeat, Happy Hardcore style tracks, to melodic Hard Trance style anthems, to dark, dirty, acidic songs, and even to A.M.S and CLSM's unique down tempo, chill out style are possible.
A relatively new electronic music style, Freeform is emerging as a popular genre in the UK, Scandinavia and Australia. In North-America, some producers of Happy Hardcore are now creating music in the Freeform style, usually distributed on the internet, due to the diminishing popularity of Happy Hardcore, and relative rarity of venues, raves and Electronic Music events that offer live Happy Hardcore performances. It is even now becoming common place for Happy Hardcore producers to make forays into the Freeform side of Hardcore, even amongst some of the biggest names, such as Gammer, Scott Brown, Weaver, Trixxy, Brisk and many more. It seems as though the Hardcore sound is leaning toward Freeform, with the trend of diminishing interest in Happy Hardcore continuing, even those producers which have not yet produced anything that is entirely classifiable as Freeform are beginning to employ sounds and styles reminiscent of the more experimental genre, including slightly acidic and psychedelic synths.
->Gabber-Gabber (IPA pronunciation: [xɑb?r]), gabba, or hardcore, is a style of electronic music and a subgenre of hardcore techno. The style was born in the Dutch in Den Haag in the late 1980s and further developed in the city of Rotterdam, which is seen as the cradle of the gabber culture. The essence of the gabber sound is a distorted kick sound, overdriven to the point where it becomes a square wave and makes a recognizably melodic tone. Often the Roland Alpha Juno was used to create this sound. Gabber tracks typically include samples and synthesised melodies with the typical tempo ranging from 160 to 220 bpm. Violence, drugs and profanity are common themes in gabber, perceptible through its samples and lyrics, often screamed, pitch shifted or distorted.
->Happy hardcore-Happy hardcore is a form of dance music typified by a very fast tempo (usually around 165-180 BPM), often coupled with male or female vocals, and saccharine lyrics. Its characteristically 4/4 beat "happy" sound distinguishes it from most other forms of breakbeat hardcore, which tend to be "darker". In its original incarnation, it was often characterized by piano riffs, synth stabs and spacey effects. This genre of music is closely related to the typically Dutch genre of Gabber. Happy hardcore evolved from rave music around 1991–1993, as the original house music-based rave became faster and began to include breakbeats, evolving into breakbeat hardcore.
In the UK, happy hardcore was at its peak between 1994 and 1997. In the more recent past happy hardcore has made a large re-emergence into the mainstream, more specifically it has received coverage in Mixmag. It has spawned various new record labels in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Japan and continues to grow in popularity. In 2002, the compilation series Bonkers was relaunched after a 3 year hiatus and have proved to be successful, releasing eight compilations between 2002 and 2005. The 21st century sound of the genre is notable by the lack of the bouncy synths and piano lines that were trademarks of the genre in the 90s. The genre now has a more euphoric trance feel to it not too dissimilar to the sound of the late 90s trance that was popular in Ibiza at the time, albeit at a higher tempo.
->Hardcore techno-Hardcore techno, often referred to as just "hardcore", is a style of electronic music that originated in the early-to-mid-1990s in multiple locations including Rotterdam, New York City and Newcastle, Australia. The style is typified by a fast tempo.[citation needed]) and the rhythmic use of distorted and atonal industrial-like beats and samples.
->Industrial hardcore-Industrial hardcore is a term used to describe the crossover of hardcore techno and rhythmic noise. Compared to other hardcore styles like darkcore, which uses the influence of gabba, and speedcore, which concentrates on exceedingly high beats per minute, industrial hardcore is focused more on overly distorted snares along with interchanging sampled bass drum loops. Industrial hardcore utilizes the darker image of industrial and is often political. Pieces of dark ambient and death industrial can be found in industrial hardcore tracks as a transition between drum choruses and tempo changes.
->Jumpstyle-Jumpstyle is a music and dance genre that orginated in the early 90's .
The structure of the genre is defined by placing a Kick Drum, Claps and/or Snare Drums, and a Distorted 909 Bass Drum on the downbeats. You'll often find an Open Hi-Hat loop or downbeat Hi-hats as well. Fairly new Hard House tracks also includes Hoovers, which you will also find in Hardcore genres like NU Style Gabber, and the Trance genre Hardstyle. Because of the genre borrowing features like this (mainly inspired by Hardstyle), the name has changed from Chicago Hard House to Jumpstyle. This may raise confusion about the genre's origins, the House scene. Although essentially, Jumpstyle has thus become a hybrid genre of Hardcore, Trance and House.
Jumpstyle is associated with a unique dance style. The dance vaguely ressembles the popular video game Dance Dance Revolution and square dancing. It is practiced solo or in duo form at house parties, dance clubs and even outdoors. When performed as a duo, it is then called Duo Jump. The dance style originated in Belgium in the late nineties, then spread to the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Gold Inferno was the first N. American jumpstyle dancer to achieve mainstream notice when he danced on the television show "So You Think You Can Dance?". Captain Ahab, from Los Angeles, is the first N. American band to book an entire JumpStyle tour across the US in 2007.
->Makina-Mákina, also called "Bakalao", is an electronic music genre originating in Spain, similar in sound to UK Hardcore but with elements of bouncy techno, and other differences.
The makina sound is usually characterized by its resonating synthesized sounding chords, and has a weaker but higher octave, sounding punchier kick drum than the similar UK produced tracks. There are two main focus of Makina production in Spain:
The Central Plateau, and the Mediterranean shoreline. The most genuine form of "Makina", the hardest and the "drummy" one, is from the Central Plateau. Moreover, the Mecca of Makina, "Radikal", a very popular disco for all the people living in the central areas of Spain, is located on a small town in the province of Toledo. "Radikal" gathers hundreds of thousand "makineros" every weekend, ready to listen to their favourite music all night long.
The "Makina" produced all the way through the Mediterranean shires is also famous, with a lot complexity in sounds and compositions, and using more agude tones. It is also the one that has always traditionally had more elements "imported" from other kinds of techno, due to the proximity of Ibiza, (Balearic Islands, Spain).
Makina is also very popular in North-East England, since DJ Scott started his distribution company MakinaUK back in 1999. Clubs and events such as After Dark 2, The New Monkey, Hangar 13, ThePowerhouse, TheBeginning and TheAsylum promote the style.
The Ruta del Bakalao was a virtual itinerary made by the "bakalaeros" (makina fans) from Madrid to the discos at the Mediterranean shore. It was suppressed by the national and regional authorities due to the high number of car accidents caused by drug and alcohol consumption.
->Rave music-Rave music consists of forms of electronic music for dancing that are associated with the rave scene. Most often, it is used to describe music that depends heavily on samples and synthesizers, and is high energy.
Rave music closely followed the acid house phenomenon. Initially "rave music" was considered a particular style that was a combination of fast breakbeat and more hardcore forms of techno. Early 1990s efforts by Nebula 2, Acen, Altern-8, The Prodigy (Experience), Utah Saints and The Shamen (En-Tact) were quintessential "rave music" and were being played at massive all night raves like Fantazia, Raindance, Universe and others.
By the early 2000s, the term was used more generically to mean any one of a number of different styles (or combinations thereof) that might be played at a rave party. In this sense, rave music is more associated with an event than a particular genre, per se. At a rave there can be different "arenas" or areas which play different styles of rave music. Very large raves called massives may include ten or more separate arenas, each with their own music style.
Raver styles of music continue to grow and evolve. Some genres and an iconic artist include (not an exhaustive list):
Breakbeat hardcore - Acen, Brainstorm Crew, The Prodigy Goa trance - Hallucinogen, Astral Projection Drum and Bass/jungle - Andy C, Goldie, Dieselboy Hardcore Techno styles: Happy Hardcore, Gabba - Luke Slater, Dave Clarke, Darren Styles Hardcore trance- Cosmic Gate, DJ Scot Project, Hardstyle - Technoboy, Blutonium Boy, Donkey Rollers, The Prophet Non-dance styles which might be heard in a rave "chill-out" room include:
Ambient music - Brian Eno, Harold Budd, The Orb IDM - Aphex Twin, Autechre Some ravers are selective between genres, showing little or no interest in one area while finding great satisfaction and joy in another. House often has roots in funk and disco while trance has its roots in new age and symphonic music. Many DJs mix genres, remix existing sounds, or leave electronic music entirely.
Amnong the new forms of rave music is "Makina", a distorted spelling of the Spanish word for "machine". It is mainly produced in Spain but also in Italy, Germany and France, and recently the North East of England.
->Speedcore-Speedcore is a form of hardcore techno that is typically identified by its high rate of beats per minute and aggressive themes. Tracks can range from 250 BPM all the way up to 1000 BPM.
Speedcore tracks often contain elements of its musical brethren - noizecore, gabber, and terrorcore. To the untrained ear, tracks belonging to these genres sound similar.
->Terrorcore-Terrorcore (sometimes shortened to terror), which originated in The Netherlands, is a term used to describe a subgenre of hardcore techno. Compared to other hardcore styles like breakcore, which uses the influence of breakbeat, and speedcore, which concentrates on exceedingly high beats per minute, terrorcore is a difficult term to define as each listener has a different definition of what terror is. Terrorcore employs the use of "scary" samples and synthesised sounds to give the tunes their "terror" edge. Also terrorcore can utilize both sped-up drum and bass samples and four-to-the-floor drum patterns similar to speedcore, frequently with tunes switching between both styles and then dropping with both simultaneously.
Terrorcore has been used to describe:
Tracks between 120 to 600 beats per minute. Tracks with varying numbers of layers to their sound. ie, a simple construction of bassline and ambient sounds versus tracks that use many sound sources, all often played at the same time (a "busy" track). Tracks will often contain heavy sampling from horror and science fiction films and other such "dark" media sources.
->Trancecore-Trancecore is a subgenre of hardcore dance music.
Trancecore differentiates itself from other hardcore genres by incorporating many of the hypnotic elements found in trance, layering them over dense hardcore beats. The tempo of the music closely mirrors that of hardcore and happy hardcore, generally ranging from 160 to 200 beats per minute. The genre generally has an edgier and more aggressive sound and less "cheesy" vocals than those found in happy hardcore.
The genre formed a recognizable identity apart from original hardcore dance music around 1996; happy hardcore is often associated with Trancecore, but predates it by a few years. Trancecore is generally recognized to have reached critical mass by the second installment of DJ Sharkey's Bonkers mix series. Many fans of the genre also refer to it as freeform, although this term is disputed by some as they claim freeform constitutes a separate subgenre of hardcore
->UK Hardcore-UK Hardcore is a broad term to describe the evolved United Kingdom rave hardcore lineage 4/4-kick drum and breakbeat fueled sound, which emerged there around the start of the 1990s and grew in strength during the 21st century. Encompassing numerous styles and influences, UK Hardcore has a fresh, modern edge to it, often using the latest synthesizers and equipment. Be it a vocal track or an instrumental this current style is a difficult sound to categorise as each of the key DJs and record labels have developed their own sound and approach to this genre.
House
->Acid house-Acid house is an electronic music-oriented subgenre of house music, which emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's characteristic electronic "squelch" sounds were developed by mid-1980s DJs who were experimenting with the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. Acid House spread to the United Kingdom where it was played by DJs in the early rave scene. By the late 1980s, copycat tracks and Acid House remixes brought the style into the mainstream, where it influenced other pop and dance styles.
->Bubblegum dance-Bubblegum dance (also known as happy house) is a type of Euro House a.k.a. Eurodance music that usually has silly lyrics and happy sounds. Bubblegum dance usually has a more Pop sound than other Eurodance. The lyrics and style are often silly and should not be taken seriously, but are often amusing and cheerful.
The name "bubblegum" dance was probably coined due to the style's sweet, sugary sounds. Usually females would sing the chorus, in a rather high-pitched tone, and males would help with the back ups and other vocals.
Bubblegum dance is similar to bubblegum pop music in that they both have fun, rather childish subjects. Music that fits into the bubblegum dance genre has more of an electronic dance sound, rather than pop.
->Chicago house-Chicago house is the earliest style of house music. House music originated in North America at a Chicago, USA, nightclub called The Warehouse. Many believe that the term "house music" can be traced to the name of that club. DJ Frankie Knuckles originally popularized house music while working at The Warehouse.
->Dark house-Dark house is the name used by some people to describe certain progressive house records that are characterised by deep penetrating lowtempo beats (~130 BPM) and the use of words and sounds that create a foreboding atmosphere.
->Deep house-Deep house is a style of house music. It is defined by several characteristics that distinguish it from most other forms of house music. These include calmer percussion, achieved by less compressed kick drums and softer hihats, as well as gentler transitions and simpler drum programming. The tempo of tracks is also relatively slower, ranging from around 110 to 128 bpm). The Jazz influences of deep house are most frequently brought out by sustained augmented or diminished chords which span several bars, which give the tracks a slightly dissonant feel. The use of vocals is also more common in deep house than in other forms of house music.
->Disco house-French house is a late 1990s form of house music, part of the 1990s & 2000s European dance music scene and the latest form of Euro disco. The genre is also known as "Disco house", "Neu-disco" (new disco) "French touch", "filter house" or "tekfunk". The music is notable for the "filter effect" used by artists such as Daft Punk, and sometimes uses vocal samples. French house largely overlaps with modern "funky house", depending on the artist's interpretation of the bassline's depth.
->Eurodance-Eurodance is a synonymous term for European synthesizer-driven dance music which became popularized worldwide in the early- to mid-1990s. The term has come to define the European dance music genre of today.
->Electro house-Electro house (also known as dirty house, electrotech, and often shortened to electro) is a subgenre of house music that rose to become one of the most prominent genres of electronic dance music in 2004-6. Stylistically, it combines the four to the floor beats commonly found in House music with harmonically rich analogue basslines, abrasive high-pitched leads and the occasional piano or string riff. The tempo of electro house ranges approximately from 125 to 135 bpm.
The use of the word "electro" to describe this style of modern house music is contentious, and creates an ambiguity between electro house and the 1980s electro movement, by which it was influenced.
->French house-French house is a late 1990s form of house music, part of the 1990s & 2000s European dance music scene and the latest form of Euro disco. The genre is also known as "Disco house", "Neu-disco" (new disco) "French touch", "filter house" or "tekfunk". The music is notable for the "filter effect" used by artists such as Daft Punk, and sometimes uses vocal samples. French house largely overlaps with modern "funky house", depending on the artist's interpretation of the bassline's depth.
->Freestyle house-Freestyle or Latin Freestyle, also called Latin Hip Hop in its early years, is a form of electronic music that is heavily influenced by Latin American culture. Performers such as Safire, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, TKA, George Lamond, and Expose are notable performers of this genre. Freestyle originated in New York in the early 80's. It continues to be produced today and enjoys some degree of popularity, especially in urban Latino and Italian American communities. Another popular modern dance music genre, Florida breaks, evolved from this sound.
The music first developed primarily in New York City and Miami in the mid-1980s. It eventually spread to many other cities with Hispanic populations. Initially, it was a fusion of the vocal styles found in 1970s disco music with the syncopated, synthetic instrumentation of 1980s electro, as favored by fans of breakdancing. It was also influenced by sampling, as found in hip hop music. In the 1990s, the electro and hip hop influences were supplanted by house music.
->Funky house-House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by dance club DJs in Chicago in the early to mid-1980s.[citation needed] House music is strongly influenced by elements of the late 1970s soul- and funk-infused dance music style of disco. House music takes disco's use of a prominent bass drum on every beat and developed a new style by mixing in a heavy electronic synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples, and reverb (or delay)-enhanced vocals.
->Ghetto house-Ghetto house, booty house or Juke house is a type of Chicago House which started being recognised in its own right from around 1992 onwards. It features minimal 808 and 909 drum machine-driven tracks, and sometimes sexually explicit lyrics.
Using the template of classic Chicago House music (primarily, Percolator by Cajmere), and adding the sexual lyrics perceived by casual fans of Miami Bass, it has usually been made on very minimal equipment with little or no effects. It usually features a "4-to-the-floor" kick drum (full sounding, but not too long or distorted) along with Roland 808 and 909 synthesised tom-tom sounds, minimal use of analogue synths, and short, slightly dirty sounding (both sonically and lyrically) vocal samples, often repeated in various ways. Also common are 808 and 909 clap sounds, and full "rapped" verses and choruses.
->Hi-NRG-Hi-NRG (High Energy) is a type of electronic dance music which emerged and then became popular in nightclubs in the early 1980s. It continues to be popular today.
->UK Hard house-UK Hard House or simply Hard House (not to be confused with Chicago hard house) is a style of House music that emerged in the 1990s. Tony De Vit (1957 to 1998) was one of the pioneers of the hard house sound in the early 90's, playing a harder, louder, faster style of dance music. The hard house scene grew in popularity throughout the 90's with Trade and Chuff Chuff being joined by several other large club nights e.g. Sundissential, Insomniacz, Slinky and many more.
Hard house is typified by a set formula of up-tempo compressed kick drums, signature style off-beat basslines and the use of 'hoover' type sounds. In contempt of the name it shares very little part in style with house music, but borrows elements heavily from trance music (trancy synths and sometimes breakdown formula), and hardcore/rave music (hoover sounds, chants sometimes). Generally, hard house is part of a wider group of styles called hard dance and has little in common with the modern trance or house scenes.
->Hip house-Hip-house, also known as house rap, is a musical genre that mixes elements of house music and hip-hop. The style rose to prominence during the 1980s in New York and Chicago. However, the first officially credited hip house track was 1988's Rok Da House by UK producers the Beatmasters featuring British female emcees the Cookie Crew.
Minor controversy ensued when a U.S. record called "Get Busy" by Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady claimed it was the "first hip house record on vinyl." The Beatmasters disputed this fact, claiming that "Rok da House" had originally been written and pressed to vinyl in 1986 . The outfit responded by releasing "Who’s in the House?" featuring British emcee Merlin, containing the diss "Watch Out, Tyree—we come faster, this is the sound of the true Beatmasters." More claims to the hip-house crown were subsequently laid down in tracks by Fast Eddie, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, and Toni Scott.
->Househop->
HouseHop Volume 1
Released: December 2006
TRACKLIST: Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous - (Kue's Electric Funk Remix)
Delicious - Let It Drop - (Original Mix)
Akon ft. Eminem - Smack That - (Ross.FM's Peakhour Club Remix)
Hatiras, DJ Dan & Messinian - Baked From Scratch - (Olav Basoski Remix)
Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back - (Linus Loves Remix)
E40 + Fedde Le Grand - Put Your Hands Up For California - (DJ Kue's Blend)
Diddy & Erick Morillo - Dance I said - (Tonka Remix)
Ross.FM & 9Lives - That House - (Bangin Electro Mix)
Chris Kaeser - Grade A Bitch - (Jacques Bauer Turbo Mix)
Justin Timberlake - My Love - (Linus Loves Remix)
HouseHop Volume 2
Released: April 2007
TRACKLIST: Nelly Furtado - ManEater - (Whitelabel Remix)
Ferry Corsten ft. Guru - Junk - (Jason Nevins Remix)
Paul Oakenfold ft. Pharrell Williams - Sex and Money - (Electro Remix / Ross.FM Edit)
Fergie ft. Ludacris - Glamorous - (Marcelo Guerra Remix)
Starkillers - Scream - (Dany Wild Remix)
Pussycat Dolls ft. Timbaland - Wait A Minute (Ross.FM Club Remix)
Lieitaunt - What U Lookin At - (Filter Freq & Felipe Avelar Remix)
Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around - (Whitelabel Remix)
Ross.FM ft. 9Lives - That House - (Durty Remix)
Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake & Nelly Furtado - Give it To Me - (Jeremy Word Remix)
->Italo house-Italo house (often simply referred to as "Italo") is a form of house music popular in Italy, Britain and United States since the late 1980s that fuses house and Italo disco. The main musical characteristic is its use of predominantly electronic piano chords in a more lyrical (yet still "clunky") form than classic Chicago House records. The best known example is Black Box's "Ride On Time".
Two of the genre's most notable characteristics are its liberal use of lyrical hooks from other compositions (usually by pairing phrases from unrelated compositions), and its translation of Italian lyrics into a gibberish form of English. While the 49ers records would display the best example of the former, the latter is epitomized by the Black Box record "Everybody Everybody". The resulting "gibberish" lyrics (whether sampled or translated ) have a vaguely impressionistic charm that has stuck with the genre as it cycles through musical fads ranging from disco to drum and bass.
Italo House was preceded by a movement called Italo Disco. Whereas Italo Disco is defined more by its early use of electronica and HiNRG (the musical part), Italo House is defined predominantly by its lyrical oddities. Indeed, groups that spoke and wrote native English would intentionally imitate the lyrical goofiness of the genre. Today, house DJs and musicians around the world, such as Ewan Pearson and David Gilmore, are fusing elements of the 80s electro revival (US and Britain) with that of Italo House.
->Jumpstyle (Chicago hard house)-Jumpstyle is a music and dance genre that orginated in the early 90's .
The structure of the genre is defined by placing a Kick Drum, Claps and/or Snare Drums, and a Distorted 909 Bass Drum on the downbeats. You'll often find an Open Hi-Hat loop or downbeat Hi-hats as well. Fairly new Hard House tracks also includes Hoovers, which you will also find in Hardcore genres like NU Style Gabber, and the Trance genre Hardstyle. Because of the genre borrowing features like this (mainly inspired by Hardstyle), the name has changed from Chicago Hard House to Jumpstyle. This may raise confusion about the genre's origins, the House scene. Although essentially, Jumpstyle has thus become a hybrid genre of Hardcore, Trance and House.
Jumpstyle is associated with a unique dance style. The dance vaguely ressembles the popular video game Dance Dance Revolution and square dancing. It is practiced solo or in duo form at house parties, dance clubs and even outdoors. When performed as a duo, it is then called Duo Jump. The dance style originated in Belgium in the late nineties, then spread to the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Gold Inferno was the first N. American jumpstyle dancer to achieve mainstream notice when he danced on the television show "So You Think You Can Dance?". Captain Ahab, from Los Angeles, is the first N. American band to book an entire JumpStyle tour across the US in 2007.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpstyle"
->Kwaito-Kwaito is a music genre that emerged in Johannesburg, South Africa in the early 1990s. It is based on house music beats, but typically at a slower tempo and containing melodic and percussive African samples which are looped, deep basslines and often vocals, generally male, shouted or chanted rather than sung or rapped. More recently, Kwaito artists like Zola have rapped their lyrics in a hip-hop style, while others such as BOP and Oskido have sped up their beats and toned down the male chants to create a softer form of Kwaito or african house. Other prominent kwaito artists include Arthur, Mandoza and Mzekezeke. Kwaito's lyrics are usually in indigenous South African languages or in English, although several languages can be found in the same song. The name Kwaito itself is derived from the Afrikaans word Kwaai, meaning "angry", a word that has acquired a "cool" connotation.
->Latin house-Latin house is an electronic dance music subgenre that mixes together house and Latin American music, such as that of Brazilian, Cuban and Colombian origin.
->Merenhouse-Merenhouse is a style of music developed in the US and Latin America by groups such as Proyecto Uno, Fulanito, Los Ilegales, Sandy y Papo, Sancocho and Zona 7. It mixes merengue, hip hop and house music, taking mainly rap vocals from hip hop and other musical elements from house music and merengue. Reggaeton pioneer El General has experimented with the genre on songs such as "Caramelo".
->Minimal house/Microhouse-Microhouse, Minimal house, Buftech or sometimes just minimal, is a subgenre of house and glitch music.
->New York house (aka US garage)-New York house, also known as New York garage, US garage or just garage, is a style of house music born in the Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City, USA in the early 1980s It is not to be confused with UK garage, although influenced by US Garage, but also evolved out of the acid house and rave scene in the UK in the mid 1990s.
->Pumpin' house-Pumpin' house also known as Hard Funk is a subgenre of House music. Developed in the late 90's and related to French house, it also often samples disco, rock, jazz, and/or funk loops (sometimes creating dense layered textures) and usually makes extensive use of filters, but gains its appellation from its heavy use of audio level compression, which makes tracks surge and pulse -- important to create physicality in dance music. It is characterized by intense, up-front drum programming, heavy funk influence, and very emphasized basslines, often sampled from live players.
Pumpin' house ranges from the very loopy (2-beat loops being the shortest) à la Joey Beltram, to the almost songlike (8 bar patterns usually being the longest, though these can alternate from section to section, providing momentum through a track) à la Conga Squad. It is characterized by its unusual balance of intensity and funk, and the better examples are generally well tolerated even by audiences outside the electronic music scene, probably due to their heavy reliance on dance musics of past decades. Vocal and instrumental tracks are equally common -- vocal tracks often have a "diva" edge and instrumental tracks can be very melodic and dense.
Pumpin house covers the subgenres known as disco house (post-1997) and hard disco house.
->Progressive house-Progressive in the context of modern dance music (occasionally progressive electronic dance music or prog) is a term that includes a collection of electronic dance music genres which draw upon the use of progressive performing techniques and includes the styles of progressive trance, progressive house, progressive techno and progressive breaks.
Most electronic dance music tracks released are produced with certain features that are favourable for DJs to beatmatch records together seamlessly. Unlike the song structures of genres like hard house or Hi-NRG, the peaks and troughs in a progressive dance track tend to be more subtle. Layering different sounds on top of each other and slowly bringing them in and out of the mix is a key idea behind the progressive movement.
The term "progressive music" was coined in the early- to mid- 1980s during the rise of the Chicago house and Detroit techno movements, to accurately describe the beginnings of electronic dance music as being the beginnings of a massive movement in popular music. Detroit techno producer Stacey Pullen said in an interview;
"Back then, the music we called house music, techno, was also called progressive music – the meaning of 'progressive' was a futuristic way of thinking about music. That was what we called progressive."
Today, the term "progressive" typically refers to the structure of a track which occur incrementally, though there are other uses for the term: progressive trance usually refers to a type of trance music that features a less prominent lead melody and focuses more on atmosphere, and in the case of progressive house, the term "progressive" can also refer to the style's open mindedness to bring in new elements to the genre. These elements can be a variety of sounds, such as a guitar loop, computer generated noises, or other elements typical of other genres. Progressive electronic is also a term for a sub-genre in new age music and contains elements of progressive rock, classical music and ambient music and electronic music. It has been used to describe artists such as Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre.
->Skacid-Skacid is a genre of house music from 1988-1989 that is a mix of ska and acid house. The name most probably originates from Longsy D's House Sound 1988 "Mental Ska", where the lyrics repeat the word skacid in the second verse when he raps about his new style of "hiphop-reggae". Skacid clearly follows on the heels of the briefly popular hip house genre and borrows from most of hip house's form.
The word "skacid" appears as the name of a few remixes of Longsy D tracks published in 1989, as well as the catalog number/name for Beechwood Music Label's "Ska Beats 1" compilation in 1989 as "SKACID 1LP". This compilation is possibly the only skacid compilation in existence, and it contains skacid recordings by Longsy D, Ranking Roger, Buster Bloodvessel, Ministry of Ska, Double Trouble & The Rebel MC, and Roughneck
->Tribal house-Tribal house is a form of electronic dance music derived from house music but being highly drum-centric and often without a core melody.
In many tribal house tracks, it is rare to find a core melody or prolonged synth sound, such as those found in techno music and similar electronic music styles. Instead, tribal house tracks rely on sophisticated drum patterns for their rhythm. A track can consist of several different drum sounds.
There is no clear-cut definition of tribal house music, instead tracks are usually classified or perceived as tribal because of their live sound. Tribal house is reminiscent of the ethnic music of various tribes of Africa and South America, and it is not unusual for this music to feature chanting and ululation as acappellas. Tribal music can be produced with either live (ie. with real drums and instruments) or digital instrumentation: however, live-produced music of this sort in the purest sense is seen as ethnic, while digital tribal music is called 'tribal house'.
Tribal house is a fusion of various styles of electronic dance music. It is an extension of the funky house genre, and is usually uplifting and cheerful (see Latin House and African House). It can sometimes distort the boundaries between dark house, which is an offshoot of progressive house, and tech-house, a more techno-like, yet jazzy kind of house, as if mixing intelligent dance music and minimal techno. Tribal music can be produced in such a way that it absorbs the characteristics of all styles of house music.
->Tech house-Tech house, like progressive house, represents a fusion of house and techno.
Industrial
->Aggrotech-Aggrotech/Aggrotek, also referred to more recently as Terror EBM, and sometimes as Hellektro (a corruption/portmanteau of 'hell' and 'electro') is a genre that surfaced in the late 1990s.
Initially used in 1993 for advertising of the Technoclub event "Spirit of Electro" in Frankfurt/Main and referring to an American concert tour with bands such as Kevorkian Death Cycle in 1996, the term grew apart from its original meaning. By the end of the 1990s, it had begun to describe an evolution of electro-industrial and dark electro typified by somewhat harsh song structures, aggressive and generally uptempo beats with a strong influence of techno music, and lyrics of a militant, pessimistic or explicit nature. Typically, the vocals are distorted to sound hoarse, harsh and without tone. Artists also frequently use atonal melodic structures.
The style had become far less prevalent during the early 2000s with the rise of synthpop and futurepop in the alternative electronic scene, but has experienced a recent surge in popularity and proliferation as both aggrotech and power noise have become more common at goth/industrial clubs.
Older acts such as Aghast View and :wumpscut: have more recently restructured their format into a mellower, less edgy style of music, while newer acts like Psyclon Nine, Agonoize and Tactical Sekt have revitalized the genre to an extent.
Notable Artists
Aghast View Agonoize Amduscia Aslan Faction CeDigest Cenobita Combichrist Cruciform Injection Dawn of Ashes Decoded Feedback Die Sektor Dot Execute Dulce Liquido E-Craft Evil's Toy Feindflug Funker Vogt Fusspils 11 Gerrit Thomas Glis God Module Grendel Hocico Informatik Interface Lights of Euphoria Lujhboia mentalEscape Negative Format Neikka RPM Panzer AG Psyclon Nine Run Level Zero [:SITD:] Suicide Commando Tactical Sekt Tamtrum unter null Velvet Acid Christ Vigilante Virtual>
For clarity it is worth noting that while not explicitly the same, the terms Coldwave, Cybercore and Synthcore are sometimes interchangeable.
->Dark electro-Dark Electro was a musical movement of the 1990s, developed in central Europe. The term describe the sinister sounds of electronic music groups such as yelworC, Mortal Constraint, Arcana Obscura, Placebo Effect, Trial or Tri-state.
The music style was mainly inspired by electronic/post-industrial acts such as The Klinik and Skinny Puppy. The compositions were mostly complex arranged and blended with horror soundscapes, and grunts or distorted vocals. A notable artist was YelworC, a music group from Munich, formed in 1988. They laid the foundations of the Dark Electro movement in the early 1990s and represented the first artist on the well-known German label Celtic Circle Productions.
In following years, Dark Electro was displaced by techno-influenced styles such as aggrotech or futurepop.
Notable Artists
AmGod Arcana Obscura Disharmony Evils Toy (the early years) Ice Ages Mortal Constraint Placebo Effect Polygon (first album) Pulse Legion Putrefy Factor 7 Seven Trees Splatter Squall Trial Tri-state yelworC
->Electronic body music-Electronic body music (mainly known by its acronym EBM) is a music genre that combines elements of industrial music and electronic punk music.
Emerging in the early-to-mid 1980s, the genre's early influences range from the industrial music of the time (Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire), European electropunk (DAF, Liaisons Dangereuses, Portion Control) and straight-ahead electronic music (Kraftwerk).
->Futurepop-Futurepop is an electronic dance music genre, incorporating influences from synthpop (such as song structure and vocal style), uplifting trance (grandiose and arpeggiated synthesizer melodies), and electronic body music. The term was coined by Ronan Harris (of VNV Nation) and Stephan Groth (of Apoptygma Berzerk) while attempting to describe the style of music their bands produced.
In recent years the basic futurepop concept has been expanded upon in various ways, with bands like Solitary Experiments, XP8 and Rotersand combining progressive trance elements into the genre, while others such as Assemblage 23 incorporate influences from electro-industrial and EBM.[citation needed]It has even been active in Christian music circles as bands like Mercydeep have come onto the scene.
Futurepop music is popular in the cyber, European dark scenes as well as general alternative electronic scenes. Music festivals that feature futurepop bands include Infest, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Arvika Festival and M'era Luna.
At a concert appearance in LA (the Das Bunker on October 13th, 2006), Ronan Harris expressed regret about the term "Futurepop," stating that he found the term "embarrassing" and that he does not identify his music as Futurepop anymore.
->Industrial techno-Industrial techno is a cross between power noise, traditional industrial, and techno . It quite frequently includes trance elements and often resembles rave music while keeping the harsh sounds, noises, and fast pacing of industrial. Sampled and processed guitars are common, as are lyrics often built with a verse-chorus-verse song structure. Artists within the Industrial Techno hybrid-genre often exhibit traits of dance music, pop music, and industrial music combined.
->Martial music-Martial industrial, also known as military pop and martial music, is a music genre originating in late 20th century Europe. It often borrows musically from classical music, neofolk, neoclassical, traditional European marches and from elements of industrial and dark ambient.
->Neofolk-Neofolk is a form of folk music-inspired experimental music that emerged from European ideals and post-industrial music circles. Neofolk can either be solely acoustic folk music or a blend of acoustic folk instrumentation aided by varieties of accompanying sounds such as pianos, strings and elements of industrial music and experimental music. The genre encompasses a wide assortment of themes including traditional music, heathenry, romanticism and occultism. Neofolk musicians often have ties to other genres such as neoclassical and martial industrial, or have links with Heathen circles or other countercultural elements.
->Noise music-Noise music is music composed of non-traditional musical elements, and lacks musical structure like harmony and rhythm. A noise musician may incorporate, for example, tape hiss, manipulated recordings (e.g. intentionally scratched or skipping vinyl recordings), machine noise, feedback of various sorts, non-musical vocal elements, etc.
Practitioners themselves do not generally refer to it as "Noise Music"; they just call it "Noise", tacking the term "music" on the end is an explanatory device only necessary among those unfamiliar with the genre.
->Power noise-Power noise (also known as powernoise, rhythmic noise, noize and occasionally as distorted beat music) is a fusion genre between Post-Industrial music and IDM, drum & bass, hardcore techno or breakcore, that takes its inspiration from some of the more structured and distorted early industrial acts, such as Esplendor Geometrico. The term "power noise" was originally coined by Raoul Roucka of Noisex in 1997, with the track "United (Power Noise Movement)". Typically, power noise is based upon a distorted kick drum from a drum machine such as a Roland TR-909, uses militaristic 4/4 beats, and is usually instrumental. Sometimes a melodic component is added, but this is usually secondary to the rhythm. Power noise tracks are typically structured and danceable, but are known to be occasionally abstract. This genre is showcased at the annual Maschinenfest festival in Krefeld, Germany, as well as at Infest in Bradford, UK.
Bands such as Combichrist and Dulce Liquido partially belong to the Aggrotech genre as well, depending on albums and/or tracks..
The term "power noise" should not be confused with the term "power electronics", which is a subgenre of noise.
->Technoid-Technoid is an electronic music subgenre that takes its inspiration from IDM, experimental techno and noise music. The end result is usually diverse IDM-influenced rhythms with varying levels of noise and industrial influence. Artists will often use non-conventional sounds within their music, such as field recordings of natural phenomena, dated 8-bit electronic equipment, or samples from artists of a wildly different genre. It is not uncommon for two albums by the same artist to have drastically different sounds and structures, resulting in a number of acts that have evolved a great distance from where they were only years ago. German label Hymen Records is largely responsible for the term and the style.
Some noteworthy Technoid artists include Kemal, Gridlock, Black Lung, Somatic Responses, and Xingu Hill. Many Technoid artists are back-room or unsigned, however quite a few are featured on Hymen, Mirex,
LabelsAnt-Zen (Germany) Hymen Records (Germany) Hands Productions (Germany) [[
Jungle music/Drum and Bass
->Clownstep-Clownstep is a pejorative term used to describe a certain type of sound found in the electronic music genre drum and bass. The sound is typified as having a 'wobbly' bassline, simple beat structure and/or a large amount of swingbeats.
The name originated from producer Dylan. Dylan created the term as a description of Shimon & Andy C's single Bodyrock, due to its swingbeat sound that inspired an image of clowns dancing. The phrase was then popularised by Dylan on the drum & bass webforum Dogs On Acid. The phrase was censored by the site's moderators (phazeone), appearing in posts as "*********", due to its derogatory usage. A "clownsteppa" smiley was spawned, and now appears in DNB-related forums worldwide.
The meaning of the term is less a musical description than an insult within the world of internet drum and bass culture, particularly the dogsonacid forum, which is renowned within the scene. The term clownstep may be applied to any drum and bass artist that falls from favour - even the synonymous description of 'wobble' is almost meaningless as the deep bass sounds of many drum and bass tracks would be described in these terms by many listeners.
Despite the nebulous nature of the term, many drum and bass fans have found certain producers to be strong purveyors of the clownstep "sound". Relative newcomers to the scene (as of 2005) Pendulum have been singled out as pioneering the "bashing" style of pitch-bent bass tied to thunderous low-end kicks.
Pendulum's first major tune, "Vault" used this to some extent, but this element would not come to full fruition in the group's sound possibly until the release of the massively successful "Masochist". The aggressive wobble at the outset of the track is vaguely reminiscent of the other major strain of clownstep, produced by the controversial upstart Twisted Individual. Twisted's variation focuses highly on oblong drones of almost comically over-the-top bass squelches, while diverging from Pendulum's formula by relenting on heavy drum patterns or synth layers. This style is most aptly represented by Twisted's infamous "Bandwagon Blues", a track made in answer to the host of artists allegedly mimicking Twisted's admittedly singular sound (Distorted Minds and Clipz are alleged to be among the targets).
At this point, with the hybridization and co-optation of style that tends to overwhelm the UK JDB scene, many of the biggest names in jungle have produced tunes following or conjuring the aesthetic of either the Twisted Individual or Pendulum variant of clownstep. Scene stalwarts like Simon "Bassline" Smith, DJ SS, and Mampi Swift (all renowned in the past for having their own singular approaches) have all incorporated the pitch-bent heavy wobble and thunderous kicks that typify the bulk of the clownstep idiom. As a result, many jungle aficionados have become dismissive of what is perceived to be a very "commercial" and "generic" turn in the production styles of most of the UK headliners.
To be fair, however, such a gripe is not altogether uncommon in the world of blogs and message boards (especially the fiercely critical and notoriously scathing DogsOnAcid forums), and it is altogether possible that the clownstep "crisis" lamented by many today is merely a rehash of the "ragga crisis" of a decade ago.
Ultimately, despite the muddiness of the term in many circles, and its persistent pejorative connotation, the sub-genre of clownstep seems to have a sound at least as distinctive and identifiable as that of Drumfunk, Neurofunk, or Hardstep.
Despite this, artists still chafe at the label. While Twisted Individual seems to have cheekily and rather ironically embraced the tag, others remain offended. On a 2003 radio broadcast, one member of Pendulum introduced one of their new tunes, exclaiming: "This isn't clownstep, fuck you all!"
In recent days, Clownstep has come to have an entirely new meaning, one free of shame and misuse. On several select music-community websites, such as ACIDplanet, Clownstep is becoming much of what happy hardcore did to that genre in its time. This definition of Clownstep refers to happy Drum & Bass with the swing feel on the hats and/or other forms of percussion. Though this definition and style are not yet widely in use, it is becoming increasingly popular with fans of electronic music in general, not just those who like D&B. Whether or not this sub-genre can survive commercially is yet another matter entirely.
->Darkstep-Darkstep is a sub-genre of Drum and Bass which became popular in the late 1990s. It combines the dark elements of Darkcore with highly energetic breakbeats. Samples commonly used to achieve this include the amen break and the firefight break.
A typical darkstep track is characterized by the energy of the drums and bassline, and ambient noises similar to those used in neurofunk. It generally does not follow any musical scales, tending to use chromatic scales and other dissonant elements to create a dark atmosphere.
->Drill n bass-Drill 'N bass is a genre name coined by fans for a type of electronic music that emerged from drum 'n bass in the mid-1990s. Artists like Luke Vibert, Squarepusher, and most famously, Aphex Twin created the sound in 1995 (see 1995 in music).
The genre is characterized by extremely complex and detailed drum programming, often sampled from the famous "amen" breakbeat. Although inspired by early Jungle music, the complexity and attention to measure-by-measure detail found in drill 'n bass distanced it from the dancefloor mentality of early Drum 'N Bass.
Aphex Twin's 1996 release Richard D. James Album is thought to be of great influence on modern Drill 'n Bass. In 1998, Aphex Twin released his "Come to Daddy" single, which is mainly in the style of Drill 'N Bass, and which was commercially successful worldwide.
By 1999, the genre seemed to disappear[citation needed]. Only a few artists, such as The Flashbulb, still clung to the Drill 'n' Bass label. Newer artists, such as Venetian Snares and Doormouse, dubbed their evolution of the genre "breakcore".
->Drumfunk-Drumfunk is a subgenre of drum & bass sometimes referred to as "edits" or "choppage". The term came into widespread use ca. 2000, when drumfunk itself began to expand. The hallmarks of drumfunk records are complex breakbeats which sound as though they are being played live on a drumkit, but are usually composed of samples which have been processed and rearranged electronically. The most common break used is the amen as sampled from The Winstons' "Amen Brother" as well as Apache, Think, Aligator Boogaloo and a host of others.
Though a subgenre of drum & bass, it is usually much more complex than the standard drum patterns that exist within mainstream drum & bass. The focus of the song tends to be on the drums rather than the melodies. It is usually composed of drum samples from old funk records which are relatively obscure. The melodies, if any, provide a relaxed backdrop compared to the mainstream type of drum and bass. The most popular event to champion this style is Technicality run by Chris Inperspective and based in London at Herbal on the first Wednesday of every month and also Ichione which is based in Amsterdam and also features food and film along with the music. As well as it's dancefloor appeal, drumfunk is also suitable for listening at home as its intricate drum work and laidback textural arrangements make for a soothing and satisfying experience.
Key drumfunk artists include Paradox (arguably the originator of both the term and production style who also releases music under the alias Alaska), Fracture and Neptune, Equinox, Danny Breaks, Digital, Seba, Macc, Fanu, 0=0, Senses, Chris Inperspective and KJ Sawka, although other producers have been labeled as such from time to time. The most important and influential labels in drumfunk are Paradox Music, 13 Music, Inperspective, Outsider, Offshore, Forestry Service, Counter Intelligence, Bassbin, Breakin, Subvert Central Recordings and Lightless Recordings.
->Futurestep-Futurestep is a relatively new sub-genre of drum and bass music, combining the synthesized melodic elements of hardstyle with drum and bass rhythms, and a wide variety of samples, particularly from rock, hip hop and reggae. Futurestep is most closely related to fellow sub-genres Jump-Up and Neurofunk, but generally sounds more upbeat and is more likely to use vocals and progressive chord changes. Futurestep was most noted by the release of Pendulum's "Hold Your Colour" and DJ Fresh's "Escape From Planet Monday" album, which have helped the sound become internationally popular.
->Hardstep-Hardstep is a subgenre of drum and bass which emerged in 1994. The composure of hardstep is similar to that of industrial techno but in a drum and bass context, characterized by heavy beats and bass lines which tend to dominate the entire space of a track alone.
RAM, Hardleaders, Trouble on Vinyl, Renegade Hardware and Formation are examples of hardstep record labels, and some of the most significant hardstep artists are Dieselboy, Evol Intent, Technical Itch, Limewax, Ram Trilogy and Dylan.
->Jump-Up-Jump-Up is a subgenre of jungle and drum and bass that was popular with fans of drum and bass in the mid 1990s and was designed to be played in mainstream nightclubs to get a crowd to "jump up" and dance. It is usually characterized by basslines that have a pitch bending LFO on them which gives the sub-bass a "wobble" sound accompanied by uptempo drum loops.
Most frequently in modern Jump-Up, an element of highly energetic "rave stabs" are often heard. While some critics dismissively conclude that this subgenre of DNB is more accessible to casual listeners with the disposable fanbase mostly consisting of young ravers that listen to the subgenre for anywhere between 2-3 years, Jump up is actually more closely related to the more popular 1996-1997 era of jungle-drum&bass, known for its 'warmth' through notable beat and melody syncopation and cleaner, simpler sounding heavy basslines (as opposed to the lighter weight, more distorted basslines of the colder, more precise sounding techier styles of Neurofunk & Techstep coming out around this time). Older examples include DJ Zinc's Super Sharp Shooter or his remix of the Fugees' Ready Or Not (known at the time as Fugees or Not), which also samples Redman on the original version of his first collaboration with Method Man, How High. Extensive use of hiphop samples was common in jumpup in the late 90's. More common examples of modern Jump-Up include Pendulum's "Vault" and the 'wobble' of Twisted Individual, Taxman, Zen, TC etc.
Jump Up is also the name of a record company that released hard drum and bass records from 1996-1997.
->Liquid funk-Liquid funk is a style of drum and bass. While it uses similar basslines and bar layouts to other styles, it contains fewer bar-oriented samples and more instrumental layers (both synthesized and natural), harmonies, and ambience, producing a calmer atmosphere directed at both home listeners and nightclub audiences.
In 2000, Fabio began championing a new form of drum and bass he called "Liquid funk", with a compilation release of the same name on his Creative Source label. This was characterised by influences from disco and house, and widespread use of vocals. Although slow to catch on at first, the style grew massively in popularity around 2003-2004, and by 2005 it was established as one of the biggest-selling subgenres in drum and bass, with labels like Good Looking Records (although this label is strongly cross-genred with atmospheric drum and bass), Hospital Records, Liquid V, Rubik Records, Fokuz Recordings, State of the Art Recordings and artists like Calibre, High Contrast, Logistics, London Elektricity, Nu:Tone and Solid State among its main proponents.
Liquid funk is very similar to intelligent drum and bass, but has subtle differences. Liquid funk has stronger influences from soca, latin, disco, jazz, and funk music, while IDB creates a calmer yet more synthetic sound, using smooth synth lines and samples in place of the organic element achieved by use of real instruments.
Related artists4hero Alix Perez Calibre D.Kay Danny Byrd DJ Dextrous DJ Marky DJ Zinc EZ Rollers Greg Packer Henree High Contrast Logistics London Elektricity Makoto Marcus Intalex Nu:Tone Seba Shy FX XRS
->Neurofunk-Neurofunk (commonly abbreviated neuro) is a sub-genre of drum and bass pioneered by producers Ed Rush, Optical and Matrix,[1][2] during the periods of 1997 & 1998 in London, England as a progression of techstep.[3] It was further developed by juxtaposed elements of heavier and darker forms of funk with multiple influences ranging from techno, house and jazz, characterized by consecutive stabs over the bassline and rhythmically structured by razor-sharp backbeats where highly nuanced, dark ambient atmospheric production is prominent.[4] The prototype sound of the early evolution of neurofunk - diverging from its techstep counterpart - at its most creative period which defined the style, can be heard on Ed Rush & Optical's debut album, Wormhole, released on Virus Recordings in 1998.
->Ragga jungle-Ragga jungle is the name given to a substyle of Jungle that emerged circa 1991-1992, with artists such as the Ragga Twins, Rebel MC, and Genaside II, and has heavy influences from ragga, roots reggae and dancehall.
This style is credited with engaging the black community within the jungle scene, and contributed to the 'bad boy' or 'rude boy' subculture within the UK. Ragga jungle's popularity waned significantly since 1995 in the UK, in part because the more popular DJs have avoided giving the sound airtime. Ragga jungle is now a niche sound, with a small number of labels releasing music that can be categorised in this manner.
Recently, (2001-present) Canadian and American producers have been gaining popularity with their updated version of the sub-genre largely through online networks, sparking a small, yet international renaissance. Prominent produers of this new-school sound are continuing to build bridges; often revoicing classic reggae singers to produce new works for exclusive use ( as "dubplates") and retail sale as 12" vinyl singles and downloadable mp3's.
This renaissance has sparked the return of many oldschool fans and producers alike; who faded from the scene or reinvented themselves when the raves thinned and the music shed its soundsystem roots. A veritable dark ages followed for ragga junglists when club djs opted to support the more technical and less vocal-oriented Drum and bass productions. Dubwise junglists have welcomed the return of the rub-a-dub sound, and ragga vocals have gradually regained favour, no doubt helped by the crossover of big brother Dancehall.
Artists
45 Thieves 9mm Cassien of Legend Baby Demo MC Bass Nacho BigEars MC Bigg Triggs Bombah Capital J Chaos In Motion Conquering Lion Criminal Sound Debaser Demolition Man Dextrous Deos Dialekt Diamond Geezer Direct Feed Diesel Boy General Malice Human? Jacky Murda Jahba DJ K Keej aka KGBkid KODA Kontest Krinjah M-Beat Mad Dem Sound Nama Nicky Blackmarket Psychofreud RAW RCA RCola DJ Rhygin DJ Soul Slinger Scottfro Shy FX Sixteenarmedjack Soundmurderer SuMoNe S.V.S. Terry T Tester TRANSDUTOR Twinhooker vinyl Fatigue Wicked Squad DJ X Logic (DRSS) Zebo
->Techstep-Techstep (also referred to as tech) is a major subgenre of drum and bass, characterized by a dark, sci-fi mood, near-exclusive use of synthesised or sampled sound sources, and influences from industrial and techno music at the forefront. Although described as having a "techy" feel, techstep's relationship with techno should not be overstated. It shares the technique of creating a high-energy collage from abstract, synthetic noises, including samples, bleeps and squelches: it rarely uses instruments that have not been processed by effects. Similarly, quantized drum-machine kit and percussion sounds are favoured over naturalistic human breakbeats. However, it usually adheres to drum and bass norms in other regards, especially in terms of musical structure, with the emphasis on the "drop". Techstep saw jungle's obsession with bass change from aiming for low and deep to exploring timbre, artists aiming to outdo each other with ever more distorted and "twisted" bass sounds.
ArtistsEd Rush and Optical, Matrix, Fierce (Virus Recordings) Trace - (No U-Turn Recordings), (DSCI4 Records) Konflict, Cause 4 Concern, Usual Suspects (Renegade Hardware) Photek (Photek Productions) Source Direct (Astralwerks: Science Imprint) Dom and Roland, Calyx (Moving Shadow) Bad Company (BC Recordings) Stakka & Skynet (Audio Blueprint, Underfire Recordings) Teebee {Subtitles}
->Trancestep (aka Electrostep)-Trancestep (sometimes known as Electrostep) is a sub-genre of Drum and Bass music, combining the synthesized melodic elements of Trance and Electro with the drum patterns and basslines of Drum & Bass. Trancestep is most closely related to fellow sub-genres Techstep and Darkstep, but generally sounds more upbeat and is more likely to use sung vocals. Trancestep can also be associated to the genre mix of 2-step garage and trance.[citation needed]
Notable artists
John B Concord Dawn DJ Muffler
Techno ->Acid techno-Acid techno is the term used to describe a style of techno that originated in the London squat party scene in the mid 1990s. It is characterised by heavy use of the Roland TB-303 for bass and lead sounds, a less repetitive sound than many other forms of techno (early influences included the German acid trance scene) and an irreverent, often-political attitude seen in the titles and samples used in many of its tracks; many of the scene's originators had originally been part of the punk scene. Early labels included Stay Up Forever, Smitten, Routemaster, Boscaland, Choci's Chewns and VCF.
While acid techno originated mainly in the London scene, it soon spread across the UK and then internationally and is today popular in many countries. Propellerhead Software developed the RB-338 ReBirth softsynth (with twin TB-303 panels and two drum machines) to emulate the unique sound of hardware which is no longer in production. However despite this it still continues to be mainly a fairly underground form of music with little commercial impact, and is often seen to be synonymous with the Squat party scene.
Over the last few years acid techno has evolved away from a predominantly 303-based sound into a much broader sub-genre of techno that still retains its dancefloor-friendly ethos, 'London' sound and lack of pretention. Labels such as No Entry, Infected, Hydraulix, Cluster, 4x4 Records, RAW and Powertools reflect this newer sound.
The majority of acid techno producers are DJs as well. Some of the more notable London-based producers are part of the Stay Up Forever Collective:
The Liberator DJs (Chris, Aaron and Julian) D.A.V.E. The Drummer (Henry Cullen) Lawrie Immersion Geezer (Guy McAffer) Ant DDR Gizelle Other DJs and producers include:
Rowland The Bastard Mark Tyler Pete Skank Choci Maxx Some of the Aphex Twin's music is Acid techno, though he also does a lot of Ambient techno, ambient, traditional techno and Drum 'n' bass too, as well as Luke Vibert, whom music has included the TB-303 sound really often since the last few years.
->BrainDance-Braindance is an electronic music genre started by Rephlex Records in 1991. It applies to "forward-thinking" techno music that can appeal to the listener's brain as well as his desire to dance and party. It encompasses the best elements of all genres, traditional, classical, electronic music, popular, modern, industrial, ambient, hip hop, electro, house, techno, breakbeat, hardcore, ragga, garage, drum and bass, etc.
Examples of BrainDance can be found on many Aphex Twin albums including Come To Daddy.
Braindance can apply to music on Rephlex Records, or record labels started by artists there for example Ed-DMX's Breakin' records label and u-ziq's Planet-mu label.
Young artists who are influenced by Aphex Twin can call themself music as BrainDance, such as Ovuca who was later signed to Rephlex Records after they found his pornography video soundtrack.
EquipmentSynth Drum Machine Sampler Sequencer Software Roland SH-101 Roland TB-606 Akai Roland MC-4 Roland TB-303 Roland TR-808 Atari ST Roland TR-909 Roland R8
->Detroit techno-Detroit techno is an early style of electronic music originating from Detroit, Michigan, USA in the mid-1980s. A distinguishing trait of Detroit techno is the use of analog synthesizers and early drum machines, notably the roland TR-909 for its production or, in later releases, the use of digital emulation to create the characteristic sounds of those machines.
->Freetekno-Freetekno is the name of a cultural movement that is present in both Europe and North America. Freetekno sound systems or tribes form in loose collectives, frequently with anarchist philosophies. These sound systems join together to hold parties wherever a viable space can be found - typical locations include warehouses (also known as squat parties), fields, abandoned buildings or forests. Because freetekno parties are usually held illegally this sometimes leads to clashes with the police, as was the case at both the 2004 and 2005 Czechtek festivals and many other, smaller parties around the world at different times.
London in the United Kingdom plays host to "free parties" (term used by the squat party scene) thrown by an array of sound systems every week. A regular theme is (and always has been) techno, although drum & bass, breakbeat and hardcore can be common. Parties will occur all over London from derelict/deserted buildings in the borough of Hackney to empty office blocks in the City of London.
->Ghettotech-Ghettotech is a form of electronic dance music originating from Detroit. It combines elements of Chicago's ghetto house with electro, hip hop, techno, and grafts the perceived raunch of Miami Bass as the vocal stamp of the music. It is usually faster than most other dance music genres, at roughly 145 to 170 bpm, and features often pornographic lyrics.
The spelling and indeed the use of the word "Ghettotech" is contentious, although Disco D is credited with developing the term during his days as a teenager on the scene.Other spellings include Ghetto Tech, GetoTek, Ghettotec, and other names include Detroit Bass (sharing the title with Detroit area Electro), Booty Bass (sharing the title with Miami Bass), and Booty Music (an umbrella term under which the genre falls).
The Ghettotech style was created by a few DJs and producers mostly working in Detroit, with a strong influence from Miami Bass and continuing influence from Chicago's ghetto house. It has existed in Detroit since approximately 1994.
Some prolific Ghettotech producers are DJ Assault, Disco D, Mr. De', DJ Nasty, DJ Godfather, DJ Starski, Big Daddy Rick and DJ Slugo.
->IDM-Intelligent dance music (commonly IDM) is a genre of electronica derived from dance music of the 1980s and early 1990s which uses weird sounds, defies rhythmic convention, and can't be danced to.IDM is originally applied to musicians like FSOL, Orb, Orbital, Richard James (aka Aphex Twin), Black Dog, B12, and various others from Warp's Artificial Intelligence series.
->Jtek-Jtek (also spelled 'J-Tec') or Japanese Techno is an electronic music genre, and also a subgenre of Techno. Like many other techno genres, the difference between Jtek and techno music originating in Europe and the United States sometimes has more to do with nationality than style, still it has several idiosyncratic qualities including the use of more trancey synths, 'cartoonish-sounding' samples, a faster BPM and harder, driving sound that can be used to distinguish it from related genres including Swedish Techno, Wonky Techno, Tech House and German Techno.
->Minimal techno-Minimal techno, a minimalist sub-genre of Techno music, is characterized by a stripped-down, glitchy sound, a fairly steady rhythm (usually around 120-135 BPM), repetition of short loops, and subtle changes.
Related styles include Detroit techno, ambient techno, microhouse and tech house.
->New beat-"New Beat" is a music term that used twice during the 80s. It describes 2 different music styles.
At first it used on the U.S.A. during the early '80s. New Beat music was a contemporary genre to techno and house music from Detroit and Chicago respectively, although not intrinsically linked. The Americans at the time used the term to describe those music styles that they never heard before. It was the new beat of the time, the new sound, very different from Hi-NRG disco, New Wave, Synth Pop, Rap or whatever. The term very fast replaced by other terms, so virtually any USA hit once described as "New Beat" today is a part of another music style (mostly House).
The second time, the term "New Beat" used in Europe, around 1987. It became a mainstream term between the summer of 1989 and the summer of 1990, but faded fast after Euro House took over.
The New Beat sound, mostly originated in Belgium and the productions date in the late 1980s and especially between the years 1987 and 1988. It was an underground dance music style, well known at Clubs and Discos around Europe. There was 2 popular New Beat groups, with some commercial success: "Confetti's" and The Lords of Acid. Those groups are among the very few New Beat ones, that produced Music Videos and during the late 80s, they had a heavy airplay on the original MTV Europe, through the show "Party Zone". MTV Europe's VJ Steve Blame was a great fan of New Beat and through his position on MTV News, promoted the Belgium's New Beat sound through his reports.
Legend has it that the Belgian New Beat was invented in the nightclub Boccaccio in Destelbergen near Ghent when DJ Marc Grouls played a 45rpm Electronic Body Music (EBM) record at 33rpm, with the pitch control set to +8. The track in question was Flesh by A Split-Second.
In addition to A Split Second, the genre was also heavily influenced by other EBM acts such as Front 242 and The Neon Judgement, as well as the likes of Fad Gadget, Gary Numan and Anne Clark.
In the UK, the term "New Beat" used in 1988 to point out that it was the new sound of dance music and a less commercial alternative to UK's "eurobeat". Eurobeat at the time was used on the UK, for the Stock Aitken Waterman productions. Since Belgium's New Beat, Acid Trance and the first Techno-Rave songs mixed together easily, for a short while, the less informed (about the current trends) European Clubbers of the late 80s, called all those music styles "New Beat", same way years later call everything "Techno" and nowadays "Electro".
Just before the term fades (during 1990-1991), it also used to describe Belgium and German dance groups like Technotronic, Snap, The adventures of Stevie V, McSar & the Real McCoy and Twenty4Seven on the minnor European (and related) markets (Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Southern France). The term in this case used again like the way it used in USA almost a decade before: Just to describe overall the "new" dance sound of the time and not a music style (it used to fill the "gap" between 80s eurodisco and the 90s Euro-House)
Many Europeans consider New Beat as a forerunner of European house music (Euro-House). Others, consider that "New Beat" was the first true European dance music style, without any Euro Disco (Italo Disco - Euro Beat) influences. New Beat incorporated more techno and acid house influences. Euro House had Euro Disco influences and for sure is not a "New Beat" / "Euro Disco" crossover. So for them, "Euro Beat" was a music style, that faded in 1990, for unknown reasons.
USA fans of 90s eurohouse (in the USA they use the term "90s eurodance"), testify that the term "New Beat" also used for a short while during the early 90s, to describe various early 90s imports on the USA market, like 2 Unlimited, Quadrophonia, T99, etc.
->Nortec-Nortec (from the combination of "norte?o" and "techno") is an electronic musical genre from Tijuana (a border city in Baja California, Mexico) that first gained popularity in the 2001. Nortec music is characterized by hard dance beats and samples from traditional forms of Mexican music such as Banda sinaloense and Norte?o - unmistakably Mexican horns are often used.
In 1999, Pepe Mogt was experimenting with both Norte?o (popular folk music in Tijuana) Sounds and Electronica ( techno ). This sound would turn out to be Nortec, a style he created and later shared with a group of like minded musicians that would eventually turn into the Nortec Collective.
Situated near the United States border, and in the US cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Tijuana's musical scene is heavily influenced by the border, and in particular the United States and Europe.
->Rave music-Rave music consists of forms of electronic music for dancing that are associated with the rave scene. Most often, it is used to describe music that depends heavily on samples and synthesizers, and is high energy.
Rave music closely followed the acid house phenomenon. Initially "rave music" was considered a particular style that was a combination of fast breakbeat and more hardcore forms of techno. Early 1990s efforts by Nebula 2, Acen, Altern-8, The Prodigy (Experience), Utah Saints and The Shamen (En-Tact) were quintessential "rave music" and were being played at massive all night raves like Fantazia, Raindance, Universe and others.
By the early 2000s, the term was used more generically to mean any one of a number of different styles (or combinations thereof) that might be played at a rave party. In this sense, rave music is more associated with an event than a particular genre, per se. At a rave there can be different "arenas" or areas which play different styles of rave music. Very large raves called massives may include ten or more separate arenas, each with their own music style.
Raver styles of music continue to grow and evolve. Some genres and an iconic artist include (not an exhaustive list):
Breakbeat hardcore - Acen, Brainstorm Crew, The Prodigy Goa trance - Hallucinogen, Astral Projection Drum and Bass/jungle - Andy C, Goldie, Dieselboy Hardcore Techno styles: Happy Hardcore, Gabba - Luke Slater, Dave Clarke, Darren Styles Hardcore trance- Cosmic Gate, DJ Scot Project, Hardstyle - Technoboy, Blutonium Boy, Donkey Rollers, The Prophet Non-dance styles which might be heard in a rave "chill-out" room include:
Ambient music - Brian Eno, Harold Budd, The Orb IDM - Aphex Twin, Autechre Some ravers are selective between genres, showing little or no interest in one area while finding great satisfaction and joy in another. House often has roots in funk and disco while trance has its roots in new age and symphonic music. Many DJs mix genres, remix existing sounds, or leave electronic music entirely.
Amnong the new forms of rave music is "Makina", a distorted spelling of the Spanish word for "machine". It is mainly produced in Spain but also in Italy, Germany and France, and recently the North East of England.
->Schranz-Schranz [???nts] is the name given to European (especially German) hard techno, a style of techno typically around 140-150 BPM and based around massively bass-heavy kick drums, driving percussion and distorted, looping synth noises. The music can however be slower. The term originated in 1994 when Frankfurt-based DJ Chris Liebing used it to describe a certain type of techno in a record store he ran -- "For me personally, since that day in 1994, "Schranz" is a description for various dark and distorted sounds in Techno" (Chris Liebing 2002). "Schranz" is a surname found predominantly in Austria, "schranzen" means to eat loudly and voraciously in Dutch slang. There are speculations, however, that it was meant as a contraction of the two German verbs schreien (scream) and tanzen (dance), i.e. "schr-anz".
More recently (2005-06), Schranz music has morphed into an even faster style generally referred to as "hardtechno" and running at 150+ bpm. That style is most prominently represented by DJs/producers DJ Amok, DJ Rush, Frank Kvitta, Sven Wittekind and Robert Natus, whereas Chris Liebing has not followed this move and indeed now hovers around 130 bpm in his DJ sets.
Other important producers in the genre beside Chris Liebing are DJ Amok, DJ Rush, Scott Kemix, DJ Pheeva, Andre Frauenstein, DJ Arcane, Frank Kvitta, Sven Wittekind, Arkus P, Weichentechnikk, Cari Lekebusch, Andreas Kremer, L-U-K-M, Tom Hades, Pet Duo, Felix Kroecher, Tomash Gee, Mario Ranieri, Patrik Skoog, Lars Klein, Robert Natus, Cenk Oezdemir aka Mhonolog, Seema, DJ Mahatma, Matt M. Maddox, Leo Laker, ViperXXL, O.B.I. aka Tobias Lüke, Energun 22, Boris Schalk, DJ Minupren, Torsten Kanzler, Sandy Warez
->Wonky techno-Wonky techno is a style of techno music that is based around breaking from a formulaic 4-4 beat structure and experimenting with new sounds and rhythms. The sound is often distorted, stuttering, broken and warped, with a lot of influence from breakbeat, glitch and electro. At one end of the scale wonky techno can be very funky music well-suited to the dancefloor; at the other end it can be very experimental and abstract.
The origins of the term 'wonky techno' are under some dispute, with no exact first usage established. Most commonly, the term is thought to originate from Jerome Hill, who collected tunes of this type in a section marked 'Wonky', whilst managing a (now closed) record shop in London called Trackheads (perviously Dragondisks). 'Wonky' is generally thought to refer to the non-repetetive structure of the music. Other record shops use terms such as 'experimental' or 'quirky'.
The scene is fairly small but growing, especially in London, Brighton, Glasgow and Berlin. Nights such as Coin Operated, Uglyfunk, Iridium and Monox in the UK attract a friendly crowd and are well attended.
Producers of the wonky sound are artists such as Cristian Vogel, Si Begg, DJ Sueme, Neil Landstrumm, T.Raumschmiere, Tobias Schmidt, 3D!t, Dave Tarrida, Jason Leach, Cannibal Cooking Club, Crystal Distortion (formally of Spiral Tribe), Surfin'bernard [1],(formally of Gaye Bykers on acid], Michael Forshaw, Mascon, Fugo, Bass Invaders, Bill Youngman, Rotorik
Wonky techno labels include Neue Heimat, Sativae, Input-Output, Miditonal, Chan'n'Mikes, Subhead, Don't, Scandinavia, Sub:Strata, Uglyfunk, Shitkatapult, Mental.Ind, Mercurochrome, Feinwerk and Novamute.
Trance
->Acid trance-Acid trance is a style of trance music that emerged in the late '80s early '90s focusing on utilising the acid sound. The trademark sound of "acid" is produced with a Roland TB-303 by playing a sequenced melody while altering the instrument's filter cutoff frequency, resonance, envelope modulation, and accent controls. This real-time tone adjustment was not part of the instrument's original intended operation. Acid trance is the best known form of trance music in Belgium. The form was first showcased at the popular Antwerp Rave 24 in Belgium, and has created four national number one singles in the country since.
A descendant of acid house, since the genre of trance had not yet been invented during the advent of acid house (or acidhouse).
The first volumes of Trancemaster compilations contains a few tracks in acid trance style, just as classic trance tracks. The difference is, while acid trance tracks focus more on the changing TB-303 lines, classic trance (e.g. Dance 2 Trance, Cosmic Baby, Age of Love & Jam & Spoon) tracks are more atmospheric, they use "softer" synth-lines, oftenly stings and other ambient music elements. The line between these two styles is quite blurred, they also emerged about the same time.
Notable artistsArt of Trance Hardfloor Union Jack Eternal Basement Laurent Garnier Emmanuel Top (early works) Electric Skychurch Solar Quest Re-Pitcher Phobia Kai Tracid
->Classic trance-Classic trance is the original style of trance music that emerged in the late '80s early '90s, focusing on atmosphere and softer synth-lines compared to the acid trance style that emerged shortly after.
->Dream trance-Dream house (also known as dream trance), was a short-lived dance music style which had a big success on the dance scene between 1995 and 1997. Its main feature is the importance of melody, usually a very dreamy one (hence its name), typically played on a piano, or in some cases a violin, saxophone, etc. And now, as of 2006, for most of the cases, synthesizer sounds.
The track that launched dream house to popularity was "Children" by Robert Miles, a melancholic piece of music, its debut album Dreamland was also an iconic Dream House record. Among the most popular dream house tracks were "Sky Plus" by Nylon Moon, "Celebrate the love" by Zhi-Vago, "In Africa" by Pianonegro, others include "Metropolis The Legend of Babel" by DJ Dado, "X-Files" by DJ Dado, "Pyramids of Giza" by W. P. Alex Remark, "Moon's Waterfalls" by Roland Brant, "Dreamer" by Antico, "Space Ocean" by Daniele Gas and "Seven Days and One Week" by BBE.
Traces of dream house music can be found in today's progressive trance.
The theme to the CBS TV series NCIS is a Dream House piece
->Euro-trance-Euro-Trance is a retrospective term first used in the UK, during the spring of 2002, by UK's MTV Dance. It was used to describe all the "trance"-like European imports for the UK market, especially those recorded in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The term was never accepted by the rest of Europe, with the exception of Poland and parts of Italy (because of the popularity of MTV Italy).
->Epic trance-Uplifting trance, is a term to describe 3 different music styles, all subgenre of trance music. The first use of the term, emerged in the wake of progressive trance in the late 1990s. Characterized by extended chord progression in all elements (lead synth, bass chords, treble chords), extended breakdowns, and relegation of arpeggiation to the background while bringing wash effects to the fore. The term used for a while to describe epic trance to UK's market, and that created for a short while a terminology mess.
During the 00s, the term used in Europe to describe some non UK-based commercial trance acts, like Brooklyn Bounce, Darude, Sandstorm, etc. Many UK fans call those acts "Uplifting House", but that leads to another mid/late 90s European house music style, so better avoid it. Also in the UK, the term used to market European imports of commercial hardtrance acts, when they had attitude on the music videos and any kind of vocals in a non vocal trance way.
The term also used (a third time!) during the early 00s (and keeps today), on the psy trance/goa trance scene.
There is a close relation between Uplifting Trance and Uplifting House. Faster BPM is trance, less is house.
->Hard trance-Hard Trance originated in Germany in the early to mid-90's and is one of the earliest forms of trance. It was one of the most common forms of Trance throughout the decade, characterized by strong kicks, with a very dry and heavy sound. Now it is much more rare compared to other forms of Trance and House music, but still has a close fanbase in Japan, Germany, and other parts of Europe.
->Hardstyle-Hardstyle, sometimes referred to as hardbass, is a sub-genre of trance music that is closely related to nu style gabber and hard trance. Its sound is usually characterized by a four to the floor kick beat and an off-beat gabber style bass line, trance like synth stabs and sweeps and miscellaneous samples. Tracks often feature excessive reverb and/or other effects, breakdowns and occasionally small breakbeat sections. The average tempo is between 140 and 150 bpm, around 30 slower than nu style gabber. Many hardcore artists produce hardstyle songs, which sound very similar but are more accessible. Hardstyle is generally played along side Nu-NRG and gabber in the UK and aside hard trance or hardcore in the rest of Europe.
->Nu-NRG-Nu-NRG is a form of electronic dance music that evolved from the 1980s hi-NRG. Pioneered by Peter Harris (Blu Peter) in the late 1990s, Nu-NRG is similar to epic trance and mainstream European house music but harder and faster beat. Some nu-NRG tracks are melodic, and may be accompanied by soprano or mezzo-soprano vocals. American East Coast DJ's Digital Mizchief & DJ Fadeliss (The Biotoxic Twins) Have evolved this form, blending harder beats and PsyTrance to create a darker, heavily layered, Progressive form.1
Artists
Blu Peter
Baby Doc
S-J
Mrs Wood
Hellfire Club
Tony de Vit
Elevator
Sharkey
Digital Mizchief
Dj Fadeliss
DJ Jakimo
John Tuxman
->Progressive trance-Progressive trance is a popular sub-genre in trance music and contains elements of house, techno, and ambient music. Trance became more focused on the anthemic qualities and melodies, moving away from arpeggiated analog synth patterns. Acoustic elements and spacey pads became popular with compositions leaned towards incremental changes à la progressive structures. Progressive trance contains distinctive sounds in many tracks, such as unusual basslines or original synthesized sounds, which generally makes it more "catchy". Phrases are usually a power of two number of bars in most typical progressive trance tracks. Phrases usually begin with the introduction of a new or different melody or rhythm.
Compared to trance, the progressive wing is usually deeper and more abstract, featuring a lower average bpm (around 125-135) and a recurrent melodic structure. This structure is intuitively described as consisting of three major structural elements: (1) build-up; (2) climax; (3) break-down. These three structural elements are expressed either temporally or in their intensity, if not both. A 'build-up' sequence can sometimes last up to 3 or even 4 minutes. Subtle incremental/decremental acoustic variations (i.e., gradual addition/subtraction of instruments) anticipate the transition to each subsequent structural element of the track. The initial build-up and the final break-down are generally very similar, adding a feel of symmetry to the general structure of the melody. Furthermore, a progressive trance track is usually longer than a regular trance track, ranging in length from 5-6 to even 12-13 minutes.
Although there is a general and increasing tendency to associate progressive trance with progressive house (or vice-versa), virtually rendering these two sub-genres identical, there are however distinctive characteristics apart from the strong similitudes between them: progressive trance inherits from its parent genre (trance) a wider melodic flexibility, while progressive house is usually darker and more minimal.
Some of the most representative names that currently work (almost exclusively) in this sub-genre are Markus Schulz, Gabriel & Dresden, and Andy Moor
->Tech trance-Tech Trance is a sub-genre within electronic music that draws upon the Techno and Trance genres as the name suggests. Tech Trance was pioneered by Oliver Lieb in the mid 90's. Other early Tech Trance producers are Humate, Chris Cowie and Marmion. Tech Trance later took a new turn in the early 2000 when producers such as Marco V and Randy Katana sprung out as the leading Dutch Tech Trance producers. This new Tech-Trance focused less on the Techno elements and more on a higher commercial value. This appealed to several Trance DJs such as Ferry Corsten, Tiesto, and Armin van Buuren, who each started incorporating Tech Trance into their sets.
Tech Trance incorporates traditional elements of Techno, with its repetitive nature and strong 4/4 beat, while deriving the melodic elements from Trance. Tech Trance compositions tend to have a tempo of around 135-150 Beats per minute. Tech Trance tends to utilize a more driving sound while commonly using distortion as an effect on the melodies. Commonly, the melody containing strings and pads will begin once the beat has completely stopped, playing by itself much like a Trance breakdown. This melody will suddenly stop, leaving the drums and a completely different synth to begin, whereas Trance songs would generally continue with the same melody. The synths are short, repetitive and contain less note changes than Trance, often having the same note played in an interesting sequence. For an example, see Sam Sharp's "Deep".
While breakdowns and builds within a song are important elements of many electronic genres, they are less prevalent in Tech Trance. As a result, more abrupt stops and starts are used to increase the effect of sudden changes within the music. Vocals are also quite rare within the Tech Trance genre, with only short phrases or single words normally incorporated. Tech Trance is currently quite an underground genre, but is growing in popularity due to its hard-edged nature and growing list of producers.
[edit] Evolution in Tech-Trance ProductionSince the development of Tech-Trance, hard house producers have evolved their style and incorporated it into the Tech-Trance sub-genre. See such tracks as "The Pod/ Modularis" by Vinylgroover, The Red Hed, Anne Savage and M Project. This usually constitutes of hard house percussion/drums, techno keyboards/samples and trance breakdowns.
E-Craig Oliver Lieb Chris Cowie Marco V Randy Katana Marcel Woods Sander Van Doorn Octagen Simon Patterson P.A.F.F. Dave Schiemann
Tech Trance compilationsOliver Lieb - Phuture Tech Trance Volume 1 Marco V - Live At Innercity 2000 M Project - HardWired Flight # 0002 & 0003 M Project & MUI - Tru Visions Sander Van Doorn - Identity
TracksIncolumis - Tsunami Ivan - Red Star (Pads mix) John Remedy - Ventricle (Lamoen & Lishious Mix) Kuisma & Rush - Yogatech (Incolumis Remix) Krzysztof Chochlow - Release / Reserve Midnight / Island of Sound L.S.G. - Blueprint (Version 1) / Netherworld M Project - TranceWired / HardWired Flight 0001/0004 Mark Sherry and BK - Amino (Original) Mindspace - Mindcontrol (Tech Mix) Natious - Amber (Oliver Lieb Remix) Sander Van Doorn - Pumpkin (Original) Spicelab - Two Vegas Soul - Retrograde Emjay - Real High (AK47 Remix) Creatures of Habit (Octagen's Abajo Remix) - Hydragen Life Less Ordinary (Alex MORPH extended original) - Alex M.O.R.P.H. The Space We Are (John O'Callaghan Remix) - Ronski Speed Need You Tonight (Octagen Remix) - SD & FNP Play it Loud/Play it louder - Randy katanna Grasshopper - Sander van doorn Advanced - Marcel Woods The Future - Joop Magnolia - Hydroid vs Robert burns Playmo - Bart Clausen
->Uplifting trance-Uplifting trance, is a term to describe 3 different music styles, all subgenre of trance music. The first use of the term, emerged in the wake of progressive trance in the late 1990s. Characterized by extended chord progression in all elements (lead synth, bass chords, treble chords), extended breakdowns, and relegation of arpeggiation to the background while bringing wash effects to the fore. The term used for a while to describe epic trance to UK's market, and that created for a short while a terminology mess.
During the 00s, the term used in Europe to describe some non UK-based commercial trance acts, like Brooklyn Bounce, Darude, Sandstorm, etc. Many UK fans call those acts "Uplifting House", but that leads to another mid/late 90s European house music style, so better avoid it. Also in the UK, the term used to market European imports of commercial hardtrance acts, when they had attitude on the music videos and any kind of vocals in a non vocal trance way.
The term also used (a third time!) during the early 00s (and keeps today), on the psy trance/goa trance scene.
There is a close relation between Uplifting Trance and Uplifting House. Faster BPM is trance, less is house.
->Vocal trance-Vocal trance is a subgenre of trance music, and contains highly melodic sessions, intro/outros which are similar to those of hard trance and tracks of usually about 6 to 8 minutes long. The sub-genre goes back to the early 1990s, when trance was still developing, and vocals have gone onto become a staple of trance. Although many early trance records used vocal samples mixed in with the beats(including Dance 2 Trance's "We Came in Peace," the first song to be referred to as "trance"), the earliest examples of the style appeared in 1992/93. Another defining track was Jam & Spoon's "Right in the Night", which was released in 1993.
A typical track consists of three elements. At the beginning of the track there is an intro of progressive beats, which lasts about 1-3 minutes. The melodic part (2-5min) starts incrementally, combining vocals, usually female, and melodic sound (for the most part high pitched and fast) with the bass pattern to give a great melody cycle. Finally when the outro is approaching, the melody fades out and we get the same rhythm as the intro, usually with some minor changes. Although later tracks have become much less formulaic.
Vocal trance is popular listening in Europe, notably Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain. The term "vocal trance" is closely related to uplifting trance, Uplifting house, Progressive trance and Progressive house.
Vocal Trance is part of Eurodance, as the term used by the Europeans. For the USA fans, the term Eurodance is more associated with eurohouse and other 90s commercial dance music styles.
Viacom UK (MTV UK, MTV Dance) tried in 2002 the term Euro-Trance, for various non UK trance music imports. A great deal of them, were Vocal Trance hits from Belgium (Ian Van Dahl, Lasgo, Sylver, Milk Inc) and Germany. Many UK fans separates those Vocal Trance hits and call them Euro-trance.
[edit] Vocal Trance in EuropeBetween the period of 1997 - 2003, this music style was mostly Progressive/Uplifting Trance with vocals (female mostly). It dominated by German - based productions, spread all over Europe because of Viva, Onyx and MTV2 Pop satellite music channels. TMF Belgium/Holland (and JIM Belgium during the 00s) followed the "hype", by promoting their own Vocal Trance productions, that became more commercial successful on UK and Spain. UK also has a share on the Vocal Trance scene, but in a more underground level. Vocal Trance artists, include: ATB, Above & Beyond, Ian Van Dahl, Lasgo, Sylver, Fragma, Milk Inc, Dj Sammy, Do, Dee Dee, Kate Ryan, Kelly Llorenna, Flip & Fill and Jessy De Smet
[edit] Vocal Trance after the summer of 2004Around 2004, Vocal Trance became less available on the European music TV channels and the following years became rare on mainstream, with few exceptions. The main reason for this, is the fact that Viacom UK (MTV / VH1) took control of both TMF Nederland / Belgium and Viva Germany music channels and changed their playlists, so to push other music styles, like U.S.A.'s r'n'b', British Electro and local Rap / Hip Hop scenes. The Vocal Trance and Progressive Trance productions after 2004 have a hard time to broadcast on TV, and only non Viacom music channels air them. The best source for vocal trance today is the music channel "Jim" from Belgium, "ZTV" from Viasat and (ironically) the show "I'm was mashed in..." from the british MTV Dance that airs the older videos. The British Flaunt channel also airs older vocal trance hits, so the german music station "iMusic1 TV" and the French channel M6Music Pop. There is a digital terrestrial channel in Nederlands, called "TMF Party", that airs new vocal trance hits, but only a bit and only after midnight. In Poland, there is a "music" channel called "4fun TV" (airs SMS messages all the time) that seems to broadcast current Vocal Trance hits originated mostly from Belgium. Czechs can catch up Vocal Trance hits from "Ocko" music channel, every Friday around 21.00 C.E.T. (The show is called "Party Rider". This channel seems to use unofficial or Internet sources to broadcast that kind of material). The Spanish fans of Vocal Trance, can watch older vocal trance hits, as a part of the show Disco 2000 on MTV Spain. Sol Espana music station, also airs Vocal Trance hits on the show "Techno Archives" that broadcasts daily around 23.00 C.E.T. Many fans of Vocal Trance, capture and digitize the Vocal and Progressive Trance videos from the music stations from all over Europe, and upload them on various P2P networks. Since mid 2006, the internet turn to be the best source for Vocal Trance music videos, the same way it happens a decade now with the Italo Disco music videos (Italo Disco by some fans considers the "grandfather" of Vocal Trance and the father of Euro House).
Unfortunately, artists friendly to vocal trance (like Dj Tiesto, Ian Van Dahl and Paul Van Dyk) forced to change their music style the last year on more "pop"-like productions. At the time being, mainly Belgium, Scandinavian and French artists produce Vocal Trance music (the French less nowadays...). In the U.K., elements of Vocal Trance can be traced in the Scouse house music style.
Beyond that, Vocal Trance has a faithful following in Europe and many web radios are dedicated exclusively to the genre.
Notable ArtistsCascada Armin Van Buuren Judge Jules Ferry Corsten DJ Ti?sto Lasgo Ian Van Dahl Above & Beyond SignalRunners Yahel Sherman QED Milk Inc Sylver Fragma
->Psychedelic trance-Psychedelic trance or psytrance is a form of electronic music that evolved from Goa trance in the early 1990s when it first began hitting the mainstream.
The original Goa trance was often made with popular Modular synthesizers and hardware samplers, but the preference in Psychedelic trance has moved to sample manipulation and storage in VST and AU software sampler applications. The use of analog synthesizers for sound synthesis has given way to digital "virtual analog" instruments like the Nord Lead, Access Virus, Korg MS-2000, Roland JP-8000 and computer VST and AU plugins like Native Instruments Reaktor. These are usually controlled by MIDI sequencers within Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications.
Psytrance saw wide success in the Tel Aviv dance scene, and moved on to nearby places.
The name psychedelic provides an umbrella term for the many divergent styles this brand of trance has birthed, including Goa, melodic, dark, progressive and suomi. Referring to it as "psychedelic" also distinguishes the style from the 'clubbier' trance music and reinforces the roots of Goa trance in the psychedelic community.
Psychedelic trance generally has a fast tempo, in the range 140 to 150 BPM. The emphasis in psychedelic trance is placed strongly on purely synthesized timbres for programming and lead melodies.
->Full on-Full on or melodic psytrance (also referred to as morning trance,club psytrance and Isra-trance) is a style of trance music, a form of psychedelic trance firstly originated in Israel at the early 2000s, especially by acts who have gained high popularity worldwide such as Astrix, Cosma and Sirius Isness. Melodic psytrance draws its main influences from more radio-friendly genres such as uplifting trance (Nitzhonot and vocal trance) and electro house, futuristic melodies, occasional electric guitar performances and usage of vocals. The expression "full on" is probably taken from the first out of a seven compilation albums series, and the first album ever to be released under Hom-mega Productions in 1998, titled Full On. Also some other sources says that the name Full On came from Fullmoon festival's name.
The music is sometimes criticized by "purists" for not being loyal to its Goa trance roots, making psychedelic trance less "underground", and blame it for selling out and over-commercialization
->Goa trance-Goa Trance is a form of electronic music and is a style of Trance music. It originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the Indian state of Goa and is distinctive, as most forms of Trance music were developed in Europe. Goa Trance enjoyed the greater part of its success from around 1994–1998, and since then has dwindled significantly both in production and consumption, largely being replaced by its successor, Psychedelic Trance or Psytrance. [citation needed]
Goa Trance is closely related to the emergence of Psytrance during the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s, where the two genres mixed together. In popular culture, the distinction between the two genres remains largely a matter of opinion (they are considered by some to be synonymous; others say that Psytrance is more "cybernetic" and that Goa Trance is more "organic", and still others maintain that there is a clear difference between the two). These two are, however, quite sonically distinct from other forms of trance in both tonal quality, structure and feel. In many countries they are generally more underground and less commercial than other forms of trance.
Among the first compilations or albums where Goa Trance could be heard, as opposed to "normal" trance music, are Dragonfly Records "Project II Trance" and its successor "Order Odonata".
->Dark psytrance-Dark psytrance (Sometimes called Killer psytrance, more common terms include darkpsy, horrortrance or simply dark) is a darker, faster and more distorted form of psychedelic trance music, with tempo ranges usually from 145 to 165 BPM. Originating in Russia and Germany, the style has recently expanded to other countries worldwide.
The term "Dark psytrance" was first used by audiences to describe a more harder-sounding psychedelic trance, while the name Killer psytrance came from Para Halu and is a more rarely used term (which is used depends mostly on the geographical area).
Unlike more mainstream forms of trance, dark psytrance generally does not use vocals, though sampling is common, with speech and other kind of samples usually being taken from different kind of movies (especially horror movies), or occasionally from other tracks. Sometimes sampling elements form other genres of music is done as a mockery of the original tracks.
The atmosphere and theme of the tracks often resemble those from genres such as dark ambient, musique concrete, darkcore, cybergrind, power noise and industrial music. Using of glitch techniques can be found often in dark psytrance music. (good examples are Kindzadza, Cosma, Highko, Noonsphere, etc.)
Recently, some of the Dark psytrance artists started to produce the more melodic, South African dark like sound (like N3XU5, Darkpsy and Fungus Funk), while some others started to experimenting with using melodies and morning trance elements in dark psy like Deja Vu Fabrique (Zolod from Parasense), Ocelot or C-P-C.
Some producers also make faster tracks (it can be from 165 to 200 BPM or even more), such as: Kalilaskov AS, Melorix, etc. This variant is sometimes called Psycore or Horrortrance on different internet message boards, however it's usually the same as the "standard" Dark psytrance, just at a higher tempo. Most dark psy artists are still producing the original style.
->Nitzhonot-Nitzhonot (Hebrew: ???????, "victories") is a crossover between Goa trance and uplifting trance, emerged during the mid-late 1990s in Israel.
Nitzhonot seems to blend hard pulsating basses, sometimes referred to as "laserkicks", with the Eastern melodies typical for Israeli Goa Trance from 1996 and 1997. The tracks are usually in a range of 145-155 BPM.
At its time Nitzhonot reached a mainstream success in Israel. The most notable artist from this genre is Eyal Barkan, who released his album 'Good Morning Israel' in 1998. It became the first trance record that achieved gold status in its home country, selling more than 20,000 copies (bootleg versions accounted for 80,000). Other artists would stand up in the same year, including Kobi Kastoriano & Eyal Ben Or as Iceman and Avi Shwartz aka Holy Men, well known for his Comic Strip track, a famous summer hit in 1998. These young producers were able to conquer the big cities with their hard hitting trance. In the end, the scene would dry out due to an overkill of low-budget and amateurish music. Typhoon Records, by far the biggest Nitzhonot label back in the late nineties, released over forty CDs in less than two years and faded away in 2000.
Before most artists in Israel changed their direction to Full On, artists in Greece captured the flow of this music. At the beginning of a new millennium Nitzhonot, now renamed as Uplifting, would stand up again, raising in popularity. However, both terms are not exactly synonyms. Uplifting stands further from Goa trance than Nitzhonot, as the oriental melodies fall away completely. A typical Uplifting track contains heroic and epic melodies with European trance influences. Notable artists include Darma, Dementia, Cyan and Star Children. Mike Verros was another significant name in the scene, as he actually introduced this style of music in Greece.
Nowadays, this second generation of Nitzhonot is still part of Greece's trance culture, although it has not reattained its old level of popularity. However, slowly but surely some new and old artists seem to be gathering fresh thoughts and strenght. Pandemonium! alias Filipe Santos will release a Nitzhonot album in 2007 and Eyal Ben Or joined the movement after 8 years of silence with the Eutuchia debut compilation.
ArtistsNitzhonot From Israel: Astrix (early works), Luminus, Eyal Barkan (early works), Goldenfinger, Holy Men, D-Zager, Zootrax, Iceman, Kaylosh, Trivia, Syndrome, Sonichaos Nitzhonot From Greece: Cyan (early works), Cherouvim Nitzhonot From Portugal: Pandemonium! Uplifting From Greece: Cyan (later works), Darma, X-Men, Cyberia, Cygnet, Loop, Mendark, Space Odyssey, Star Children, Sanga, Transfix, Soundreamer, Cydelix, Oxydow, Zed Reactor, Zodiac, Spectrum, Chemical Reaction
[edit] Nitzhonot Albums & CompilationsCherouvim - Global Touch Cyan - Beast From The East Eyal Barkan - Good Morning Israel Ezotery Space - Morning In Space 2 Holy Men - Intelligence Genetics Iceman - Turbulent Luminus - Journey Into Your Dream Syndrome - Cold Fusion Trivia - Speed Of Sound VA - Janana 1, VA - Janana 2, VA - Janana 3, VA - Janana 4, VA - Janana 5 VA - Ptzatzot 1, VA - Ptzaztot 2, VA - Ptzatzot 3
->Progressive psytrance-Progressive psytrance (also referred to as minimal psytrance, psyprog, or simply prog or 'minimal) is a style of trance music developed in the early 2000s, developed as a sub-genre of psychedelic and Goa trance.
Progressive psytrance combines the elements of minimal sounding progressive electronic music and complex developments of psychedelic music. Its heritage can be traced back to the developments of minimal techno, tech, and minimal house. The style of progressive psytrance can be described as generally darker and edgier than mainstream trance. It is also slower in tempo and is more progressive than melodic psytrance.
Currently, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany have created the most renowned minimalist labels. In the last couple of years Australia has added its own artists and labels to the minimalist trance scene.
->Psytechno-Tech psytrance or psychedelic techno is a crossover genre of techno and genres of psychedelic trance, mostly progressive psytrance and dark psytrance, and is a subgenre of tech trance.
Musical groupsFuzzion Opsis PPS Project Triac Spirallianz X-Dream Midi Miliz
->South African psytrance-South African psytrance (sometimes referred as SA trance) is a form of darker psychedelic trance music that started and is produced mostly in South Africa. Unlike the Russian and German dark psytrance, South African psytrance is more rhythmic with large percussion usage, melodic and danceable, yet keeps the nasty-like attitude although it is highly influenced by full on and tribal music. It is not uncommon to see musical groups of dark psytrance musicians with South African psytrance musicians or South African psytrance tracks in dark psytrance compilation albums, and vice verse. Also, there are artists such as Shift (Chris Hoy from Cape Town, although later leaned more to full on, and today to R&B) who combine their music with dark, or releasing tracks along with dark or dark\full on musicians (such as Psychotic Micro). The "South African sound" is not made by South African musicians only, for example the Israeli duo Abomination, the only non-South African musicians signed in the Cape Town based record label Nexus Media
->Suomisaundi-Suomisaundi (sometimes called suomistyge, suomisoundi, or spugedelic trance) is a style of freeform psychedelic trance, originating from Finland. Suomisaundi literally means "Finnish sound" in Finnish slang. The term "spugedelic" is comically derived from "psychedelic" and spuge, meaning "an alcoholic" or generally a bum in Helsinki slang. The term spugedelic was likely first used by suomisaundi artist Huopatossu Mononen, releasing a track called Kikapelaus (A Spugedelik Return To Monoverse). It seems "suomisaundi" might be the most commonly used term for Finnish psychedelic trance, since there's also a popular Soulseek chat room that has the same name.
Related fusion genres
->Space music-Space music, also spelled spacemusic, is an umbrella term that brings together music from a broad range of genres, including ambient, new age, electronic, classical, world, celtic, and experimental and others, to create the experience of contemplative spaciousness.
Space music ranges from simple to complex sonic textures usually lacking conventional melodic, rhythmic, or vocal components,typically evoking a "continuum of spatial imagery and emotion",beneficial introspection, attentiveness for deep listening, and sensations of flying, floating, cruising, gliding, or hovering.
Space music is used by individuals for both background enhancement and foreground listening, often with headphones, to enable states of relaxation, contemplation, inspiration, and generally peaceful expansive moods; it may promote health through relaxation, atmospherics for bodywork therapies, and effectiveness of meditation. Space music appears in many film soundtracks and is commonly played in planetariums.
An eclectic form of music, produced almost exclusively by independent labels, Space music occupies a small niche in the marketplace, supported and enjoyed by a relatively small audience of loyal enthusiastic listeners.
->New Age music-New Age music is a style of music originally associated with some New Age beliefs. It has its basis in the work of various 1960s European and American electronic and acoustic musicians, and is generally characterised as being primarily instrumental and repetitively melodic in nature. Recordings of naturally occurring sounds are sometimes used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece.
Partly due to some artists' open affiliation with various New Age beliefs, other artists and bands have specifically stated that they do not consider their own music to be New Age - although their work may be labelled that way by record labels, music retailers, or radio broadcasters.
New Age music is largely typified by modal and consonant harmonies, usually in conjunction with patches of sound effects or nature samples. New Age music includes both electronic and instrumental forms, frequently relying on sustained pads or long sequencer-based runs; and acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. In many cases, high-quality samples are used instead of natural acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in New Age music but as it has evolved vocals have become more common, especially vocals featuring Sanskrit, Tibetan or Native American-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends. Very long songs, up to 20 minutes and more, are frequent and generally expected. Some of these characteristics could equally be said to describe the closely related genres of ambient music and space music.
During the 1980s, the term "New Age music" was introduced more widely to the public by radio stations and then by music retailers and some record companies, as a marketing tag applied to a variety of non-mainstream instrumental music styles. Radio stations in major markets (such as "the Wave" in Los Angeles) defined themselves as "New Age", while playing some New Age music and using nature sounds in their station-id's, yet those stations also heavily featured styles musically and philosophically unrelated to New Age music, for example, Smooth Jazz.
->Ethnic electronica -Ethnic electronica (also known as ethno electronica or ethno techno) combines elements of electronic and world music and was developed in the 1990s. The term ethnic electronica appears in music zines, in online music-related forums and blogs.
The leading exponent of ethnic electronica was Bryn Jones, with his project Muslimgauze, before his death in 1999.
Other notable acts of ethnic electronica include the artists of asian underground movement (Asian Dub Foundation, State of Bengal, Transglobal Underground), Banco de Gaia, Zingaia, Afro-Celt Sound System, early work by Yat-Kha (with Ivan Sokolovsky). Among the commercial acts which work with this subgenre: Enigma, Deep Forest, Ivan Kupala.
It is important to mention controversial Turbo-folk Music also of this genre.
