Sharpnelsound - m1dy - Speedcore Dandy

m1dy
Speedcore Dandy
[Sharpnelsound; 2002]

6.6








Speedcore is not a popular genre whatsoever. Even in the rather small world of hardcore techno, it is looked down upon by many groups. Most of the time, it is written off as a bunch of aspies playing around with drum machines under a “Let’s see how fast this fucker can go” mindset, throwing away rhyme and reason and taking a huge shit on music theory and melody while searching for youtube videos and torrents of B-Grade horror movies and low key electric guitar noodling. The result: One’s ears being blasted with a firehouse of bass beats and sped up samples that most would only find a few notches more bearable than noise music.

This album needs no introduction. Speedcore Dandy comes up very quickly in speedcore discussions. It’s practically one of the hallmarks of doujin music. It embodies everything I have listed in the opening paragraph. m1dy’s widely-considered magnum opus is a pillar proving the nicheness of the genre. Who could blame people for riding off stuff like this as a clusterfuck of breakbeat drills and blasts, bordering between torturous and annoying?

Talking about the songs do very little to describe the songs on the album. The standard tempo for the genre makes it difficult to have much variety because speedcore, as the name implies, IS FUCKING FAST. It doesn’t have time to build its way up or any of that pussy shit. It laughs at the idea of a patient and orderly line and instead bum rushes the senses right off the bat. Take the title track Speedcoredandy for example: Opens right up with a machine gun of distorted deep bass, only taking a breather at the one-third point to kick back up thirty seconds later. Reaf is the first track where I was able to get an idea as to just how fast it was going. Crash is the poster boy for all of the tropes for Speedcore that people jeer at. The lo-fi production of Midi Anarchism obscures the breaks and beats into some unholy drum machine orgy, and Kimoneverybody sounds like an abstract noise session turned into a legit jam. Closer Destruct is arguably the most tame song on Speedcore Dandy and is my personal favorite on the album, almost as if it was a song several minutes longer slashed down to 93 seconds, leaving us with the best parts.

Speedcore Dandy treads between energizing and irritating, giving almost a perfect split of invigorating and Goddamn obnoxious tracks. It’s a pretty good starting place for those interested in exploring the Speedcore genre (the questions “Who?” and “Why?” are anyone's guess). This might change a small audience of peoples minds about the genre being complete trash, but it certainly won’t change the stereotypes that it carries eight years after being released. To call it “better than most speedcore” isn’t much of a compliment, or probably even a true statement.

Sharpnelsound - Mad Breaks

DJ Sharpnel
Mad Breaks
[Sharpnelsound; 2005]
8.0






I have never liked DJ Sharpnel. They're overhyped, mediocre, and ride on a the gimmick non-genre "lolicore". They're are far better J-Core artists out there. DJ Technorch has made great song after great song, and was my gateway to doujin music. REDALiCE isn't all that, but he has Angel Rings and a few decent arranges backing him up. USAO wrote some pretty nice shit for USAO CD vol. 3, I enjoyed Roughsketch's 108 Sketches, along with t+pazolite work on the same album and neetmania. I guess what I'm trying to say is that nearly everyone can have one time they do something right, and for Jea and Lemmy, that release is Mad Breaks, an hour long album of J-Core that actually frightens me with how good it is.

Don't get me wrong. I still hate him and his anime-clip-splicing parlor trick, but this proves to have some craftmanship put into it. It opens up with the surprisingly slow (by Sharpnel terms) Gate Of Dreams, which proves promising with not a single chipmunk-voiced sampled clip. Hot Pepperz kicks up the tempo (along with the quirkiness factor) and uses audio clips from Galaxy Angel. Zettai Remix by Society Suckers rips classical music and evolves into an audio-splicing track in the significantly more interesting second half, and we return to Sharpnel with the hardcore part-hip-hop, part-hardcore techno, and part-chiptune Star Wars homage titled Bounty Wars, followed up with the even more enjoyable hardcore rockabilly rave Complecks Baby.

You Don't Know What is the most honest song title in doujin history, as I have no clue whether it wants to be a speedcore song or a hardcore hip-hop mix. It seems to have thrown its hands in the air shouting "fuck it" and splits it 50/50. Together As One flounders with the same amen break sample we hear throughout half the album and generally has very little to offer. If you cannot tell that SF-C and SF-R are "tradional" Japanese hardcore remix of Chun Li and Ryu's theme respectively from Street Fighter II and have owned/knew someone with an SNES, you've wasted your childhood.

The out-of-place saxophone sampling and vocal rips gives Solitude Sun some personality and sophistication, which the mindless and wild Speed Disco Vol. 2 compliments it by being the exact polar opposite. The piano and synth melodies 20031023 are so out of place on Mad Breaks, you could probably fool a few people into thinking it's a Touhou remix. Although I'm not a fan of Mugenjou Project's Audiovisualism, I can easily imagine it growing on some people. The album ends on a good note with Blue Army, which actually deserves praise people give it.

I will not lie: I originally revisited this album to completely tear the shit out of it as writing a review trashing something is easier than praising it. Instead, I listened to an hour of mostly pretty great music. It balances the silliness that attracted an overseas audience while still keeping the geeky-side of the hardcore techno scene in mind. Not too stupid while not too retardedly abrasive. Instead of riding this off as a freakish fluke, perhaps I should reevaluate my stance on the most famous duo in the doujin community.