For those that aren't already aware, Breakcore has exploded in popularity a bit over the past year or so. Not to a crazy extent, but someone on r/breakcore made a post recently about how Breakcore is more popular right now than at any point since 2012, according to google trends.
The interesting thing though, is that this increase in popularity hasn't been for the older Ventian Snares type of rough & aggressive sound, but rather for a newer Hyperpop/y2k take on the genre, inspired namely by Sewerslvt & other artists with similar sounds. Evolutions like this are things that happen to musical genres all the time of course, as much as it might annoy purists.
What I do find interesting though is that this new wave of popularity is bringing in a lot of brand new people (zoomers especially) to Breakcore, and to related genres like DnB and Jungle. As such, they have very few preconceived notions of what breakcore is supposed to sound like other than it needs to use breakbeats and be faster than house, and very little understanding as to the differences between the genres of Breakcore, Jungle, DnB or even Hardcore.
For example, I subbed to r/breakcore about a week ago, and I've been browsing the subreddit at least once a day to see what people are posting there. One thing to note is that r/breakcore is very open to self-promos, so most of the music that's being posted are tracks made by amateur producers, many of whom are from this wave of new people flocking to the genre. From what I've seen, I'd say only about half of what people are posting there nowadays is actually Breakcore, with the other half most consisting of what I'd label as Atmospheric Jungle, as well as a few oddities like one user who posted a lo-fi fusion of Trap & Breakbeat Hardcore (here's the track, it's actually really good imo).
The fact that most of these people are making Atmospheric Jungle but labeling as Breakcore is something that I find pretty interesting. Namely, if Atmospheric Jungle has already been a genre for ~25-30 years at this point, and much of this new "Breakcore" wave is actually people creating/enjoying a modern Hyperpop-esque take on Atmospheric Jungle, then why is it that they're all flocking to (the label of) Breakcore?
Going back to how a lot of this new wave was inspired by the rise of Sewerslvt, one of the main features of her sound that makes her music so distinct is the heavy use of atmospheric pads, but in a way that sounds more like Trance/EDM/Hyperpop than traditional Atmospheric Jungle, which is usually more jazzy or ambient. On top of that, it seems that her music got stuck with the label of Breakcore at some point for reasons that I'm not really sure of tbh (she has some Breakcore tracks, but most of her music would fall into Atmospheric Jungle/DnB).
Since a lot of the people listening to her were being introduced to Jungle/DnB/Breakcore for the very first time through her music, many of them didn't have any genre names to go on, let alone the definitions of those genres. To them, Sewerslvt made high energy atmospheric music with fast breakbeats, and once the term Breakcore became associated with her music, it seems like a lot of people inferred that Breakcore was just high energy atmospheric music with fast breakbeats, which explains why so many of them are actually making/listening to their own fresh take on Atmospheric Jungle, rather than actual Breakcore, atmospheric or otherwise.
Anyone else have thoughts on this? I kinda rambled on for a bit, hopefully this was coherent lol. I've also only been paying attention to this for the past couple weeks, so if someone's got some more insight into this, then that'd be interesting to hear.
I don’t know any of those genres, but I enjoyed reading your description of events.
:rat-salute: Coherent and yet completely indecipherable, exactly as a post like this should be
You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j0E3FE4JkQ
Breakcore with classical influence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbJ63spk48s
Breakcore with metal and classical influence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKp30C3MwVk
Breakcore with happy hardcore and jungle influence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LieZVD4fDbA
Breakcore with ambient and post-rock influence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYBulfbBstc
I still consider it to be the most mature electronic genre in the sense of how much goes into making the music. Really dense polyrhythms continue the trend where jungle left off in the 1990s.
I like the breakcore that I listen to (which is mainly singles I find), but I don't have much experience or insight into the genre. I love that atmospheric jungle track you linked
I'm also bad at identifying these subgenres. Would Machine Girl be breakcore?
Would Machine Girl be breakcore?
Machine Girl, like Sewerslvt, has made more than a few Breakcore tracks (I actually posted one here yesterday). But also like Sewerslvt, most of his(?) music is in other genres like Jungle, Footwork, Juke, DnB, Hardcore, Gabber, Punk/Digital Hardcore, House etc., or weird mashups of those genres.
FFF and Dev/Null are two artist I listen to who primarily make Jungle nowadays, but who used to be big Breakcore artists (haven't listened to any of their Breakcore tracks though). Slim Sinna is another I listen to who followed a similar trajectory of making Breakcore in the past, but transitioned into making Jungle Tekno & Hardcore around 2019. Here's one of their Breakcore EPs.
Someone I found a few days ago is Purity Filter. I've only partially listened to one of their albums, "Immortal Spirit," and from what I've listened to so far it's sorta like Machine Girl in that it's a bit of a mashup of genres, but much more heavily Breakcore focused/influenced compared to Machine Girl's work.
Tokyopill is another I found out about recently, though from what I've listened to of them so far, they seem more similar to Sewerslvt in that it's a mix of ethereal atmospheric Jungle, DnB and Breakcore.
Try Girls Fucking Shit Up by Lolita Storm, it's more digital hardcore than trve kvlt breakcore but it's like riotgrrrl except it if was on that fucky shit
Yeah, I've seen a few Breakcore fans make the comparison to what happened with Drift Phonk. I actually started casually listening to Phonk a bit over the last couple years, but it wasn't until someone here mentioned the whole deal with Phonk/Drift Phonk that I finally realized that most of what I'd come to associate as Phonk was actually just a subgenre of it lol.
ive paid attention to jungle/dnb since the 90s and im not sure i could tell you what 'atmospheric jungle' is
I noticed this as well the last few months too. I saw a friend on Spotify listening to this genre and jumped in. I noticed it was a scene/sound that was organically at its start. Dreamweaver, Goreshit, Black Balloons, Tokyopill are others I recommend.
God it remind me of Toonami’s heyday with its bumps playing Drum n Bass. Which it might be part of this new genre’s inspiration. A lot of the visuals are anime related too.
Edit: I might also be completely misunderstanding the scene because r/breakcore isn’t a fan of the anime stuff which I thought was breakcore.
I think you just helped answer my question as to how the term "Breakcore" became linked to Sewerslvt and others like her. I don't use Spotify much, but I finally used my free trial of Spotify premium last summer, which was right around the same time Sewerslvt released a new album. So I wound up listening to her quite a lot, and when I did my Spotify wrapped for 2021, Breakcore came up as my #2 most listened to genre, despite the fact that most of her music I listened to was actually DnB.
So I think what happened is basically the same as what @MaoistLandlord mentioned about Phonk, which is that Spotify probably heavily biased their Breakcore playlists towards a specific subgenre (and also probably mislabeled a lot of tracks as Breakcore), and then people just went with it 'cause the music is brand new to them and they don't know any better.
recommendations for breakcore albums/artists? or jungle/dnb otherwise?
I honestly don't know that many Breakcore artists or album tbh, but I mentioned a few in response to someone else down in this thread.
For Jungle/DnB I do know quite a lot, to the point that it's honestly better to start listing off record labels for the sake of brevity. Quite a few of the Jungle record labels are relatively small and run by specific well known producers in the genre who I like, so I'll mention them with their label when applicable. Some exist entirely to put out the producer's own music (like Pete Cannon and N4 records), but most put out music from other producers as well as their own.
Jungle record labels:
- Myor Massiv, run by Coco Bryce
- Future Retro London, run by Tim Reaper (best one to check out on this list imo)
- Western Lore, run by Dead Man's Chest
- N4 Records, run by Pete Cannon
- Northern Front Records, run by Response & Pliskin
- Scientific Wax, run by Equinox
- Akko Beatz
- Deep Jungle
Jungle artists I specifically feel like mentioning: Sully, FFF, Dev/Null, Artificial Red, DJ Jubilee 1997, BAKGROUND, Dwarde, Jahganaut, Phineus II, Kid Lib, Sempra, DJ Jedi, Pizza Hotline, 4am Kru, Kloke, Sonar's Ghost.
DnB record labels:
- Hospital Records
- Pilot., run by UKF (big promoter channel for DnB and Dubstep on YouTube if you aren't already aware)
- 31 Recordings, run by Doc Scott
- Fokuz Recording, mostly liquid DnB
- Metalheadz
DnB artists I specifically feel like mentioning: Unglued, Justin Hawkes, rosall, gyrofield, 1991, Culture Shock, Sub Focus, Lenzman, Original Sin, Current Value, Dutta, Benny L, Degs, Inja, Whiney, Bop, GLXY, Oakwite.
Do you ever listen to old Alec Empire stuff (e.g. The Destroyer)? I’m a big fan of a lot of the old stuff from Digital Hardcore recordings (Shizuo, Patric C, Lolita Storm, Christoph de Babalon).
Nah. I'm only vaguely aware of the existence of Atari Teenage Riot, but I've never bothered to listen to their stuff or look in to specific members (I had to look up who Alec Empire even was lol). I've also never really heard anything in the Digital Hardcore genre I vibed with outside of what Machine Girl's done with it.
It's sorta the same deal with older Breakcore as well. Stuff like what Venetian Snares makes or that Alec Empire album you mentioned have never really appealed to me outside of a few songs here & there, mostly 'cause I've always found that a lot of that style of Breakcore sounds both too noisy and too empty at the same time if that makes sense.
saw your post down there, thanks for these regardless
I've never heard of any of this, so i typed "breakcore" into YouTube music and it served me up a song called "Junglist" and this is pretty neat, like if one of the beats from a Toonami promo got extended into a song.
EDIT: do not look up "sewerslvt" because they have an interesting screenname and read Internet comments talking about them, worst mistake of my life.
What makes breakcore different?
ngl I didn't understand a single thing from this post but I'm also boomer
A lot of the difference is in the tempo. Breakcore has always been 180+ bpm afaik, and Jungle rarely goes over 175 bpm, with it typically staying between 150-170 bpm. But if you took a Breakcore track and slowed it down under 170 bpm, it'll probably sound indistinguishable from Jungle in most instances (and vice versa for speeding up Jungle over 180 bpm).
I think one of the more clear differences is that Jungle is purebred dance/rave music, while Breakcore will often explore more into the territory of "intelligent" dance music (IDM), ie, making music for the sake of music rather than for the sake of someone being able to dance to it in a club. This doesn't mean that Breakcore is always undanceable of course, but as one example, there's Breakcore tracks out there that would fall into noise music category, which is something that I've never heard with Jungle.
Example tracks:
- Breakcore: Enduser - War On War, FFF - Junglist
- Jungle: Splash - Babylon, Mr Sensi & Tim Reaper - Lost City
each new generation is gonna hear the sped up amen break for the first time and love it because it objectively sounds amazing and do different things with it and i am looking forward to hearing all of them
objectively good and i want more of those fast breaks that make me feel sad
