Hardcore Vibes: What’s New In UK Hardcore (February 2016)

As we might have mentioned before, here at Alive At Night we’re on a mission to keep UK Hardcore (I’m just calling it UKHC from now on) in the spotlight this year and with so much going on in the scene at the moment we’re delighted to bring you our latest round up of UKHC news, views and musical recommendations.

It’s possible that you’ve noticed Gammer popping up all over your social media feeds this last week or so and that would be because, after four years of persistent requests from his mate Kutski, Gammer has finally created a guest-mix for Keeping The Rave Alive. Now, a twenty minute guest-mix is a fairly short mix but time enough usually for an artist to showcase a key selection of their latest and/or greatest releases. The average KTRA guestmix includes between six and ten tracks, but how many did Gammer squeeze in? Thirty. Yes you read that correctly, Gammer mashed, sliced and diced an eclectic selection of thirty tracks into a twenty minute mix and it’s amazing. The internet is on its knees at his feet (literally). Thirty tracks in twenty minutes. This is nothing new, this is what Gammer does and it’s why he is one of the most in demand UKHC DJ’s all around the world.

In the USA next month, Gammer will be appearing as the only UKHC artist, in fact the only non-hardstyle artist full stop, on the all-star international line up for Basscon’s epic arena event Wasteland at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.

Speaking of the USA, Gammer also recently collaborated with American hard-dance sensation Kayzo to create one of the wackiest crossovers I’ve heard in a long time! Their remix for DJ Snake’s “Propaganda” has seriously turned some heads and the clever blend of UK Hardcore with house, early rave and even drum & bass makes this one a winner! This remix will bring about a sensory overload (in a good way, of course) and is something we’d like to see more of in hard dance.

The other reason you’ve seen Gammer’s name all over the place recently has been his excellent remix, in collaboration with Darren Styles, of Porter Robinson’s “Sad Machine.” Creating a UKHC remix of such a beautiful, high profile track without detracting from the overall feel of the original is a tall order indeed and a feat that only a few could accomplish. Styles and Gammer have, of course, absolutely nailed it.

While we happen to be talking about Darren Styles, big news incoming, he’s been in the studio with Da Tweekaz working on a track for #Tweekay16! Taking the next step on from remixing each other’s tracks, the guys have now officially crossed genre boundaries and made a track together. With Da Tweekaz freely admitting to AAN that they’ve been listening to UKHC for more than a decade and Styles recently commenting on Twitter that “160 is the new black”, it seems we may be about to experience their first original collaborative ‘happy hardstyle’ production! There’s no preview or release date yet, but hold on to your rubber ducks because it’s coming!

Of course many producers in the UKHC scene have already been sailing close to a ‘happy hardstyle’ sound recently and it’s great to hear the best sounds from both worlds combined into brand new tracks. Artists are now proudly promoting the connection between the genres, as Haze & Jozzi are doing with this pumping new UKHC/hardstyle crossover collaboration, “Hardtronic.”

Down here in Sydney, I recently had the pleasure of attending the OneSeventy Label Launch Rave, where I proudly kept up the Alive At Night tradition of #drunkjournalism. It was a hot, sticky summer night (I know, hard to imagine if you’re currently freezing your bits off in the northern hemisphere) and ravers flocked into the city for an outstanding night of UKHC music, including a special OneSeventy showcase set from label heads Technikore and JTS.

JTS has just teamed up with none other than UKHC legend Scott Brown to create a brand new tune called “Never Stop,” it’s a chunky UKHC stomper with a fascinating almost tripped out little melody running through it right from the get-go, this little sound is reminding me of something from the past but I just can’t put my finger on it – I’ll have to keep on listening until the memory is unlocked!

Moving on to some brand new talent now and one act to definitely keep a close eye on in 2016 is UK duo Mizel & Wilson, who have just been snapped up by Together We Rise. Given that the label is run by some of the biggest names in the business including Gammer, Re-Con and Mark Breeze, Mizel & Wilson are now guaranteed huge support for everything they release. My favourite Mizel & Wilson track (so far!) is “Blackout” which has a very original sound and, as the name might suggest, a dark, late-night feel to it.

At the huge HTID Soundwave event in the UK last October – where DJs performed in teams, each team having also created their own anthem; Mizel & Wilson were teamed up with another hot new UK talent, Jakka B, who has been a busy man since he signed to Futureworld last year. Jakka B has created some classy sounding tracks with classic house style vocal elements, such as “Jump Up” and “You Show Me;” the latter being a collaboration with upcoming Australian DJ and producer, Summa Jae.

From house influences to trance influences now – I used to listen to a lot of trance music, in fact I still do but these days I do find some of it is a little slow for me to dance to! Thank goodness then for the wonderful hardcore subgenre known as freeform, where you will find many trance style melodies but all at a much more (in my opinion!) dancefloor friendly BPM.

Freeform, which was mainly led in the UK by Kevin Energy and Sharkey, has a bit of an underground reputation at the moment however the quality of music being produced is outstanding and is leading to regular freeform DJ sets from key players like AB and Thumpa at major UKHC events. You will also find the likes of Technikore and Gammer producing freeform from time to time, working with some of the dedicated freeform labels in the UK.

It’s also worth mentioning that freeform is not just a UK concept; Finland has had a strong and innovative freeform hardcore scene for a long time; the Finnish sound is a whole other box of delights that I might delve into for you some other time.
A fine example of the current UK freeform is the heavily hard trance influenced “Evolution Of Fire” by Transcend & Midas; have a listen to the track below.

We’re now into February and with so much amazing new music around everyone’s thoughts are of course turning to summer festival line ups. ‘HTID In The Sun’ once again lands in the Balearic Island resort of Magaluf in June for a full five days of madness; every day I wake up wondering if the line-up was announced overnight, although I’ve already got my ticket of course!

In the USA, heavyweight promoters Insomniac recently used Re-Con & Klubfiller’s track “Freak” as the soundtrack to the EDC NYC teaser video. Tickets have been on sale for ages without any hint of a line-up, but can we assume Re-Con or Klubfiller will be making an appearance? Their upcoming release “Chase The Sun” certainly has all the ingredients to become a summer UKHC anthem; I’ll just leave the track here for you as a little ray of musical sunshine to wrap up this article.

Which UKHC names would you like to see on a festival stage in your home country this year? Will we see any UKHC sneaking on to Dutch festival line ups this summer? Maybe you’re travelling overseas to catch your favourite UKHC DJs in action? Let us know in the comments section below!