Show caption Rave new world... Hudson Mohawke and Ifeoluwa. Composite: Alicia Canter/The Guardian; NTS Music Gift of the gabber: the return of dance music’s gloriously tasteless subgenre After years as a niche interest, eclipsed by other trance and hardcore variants, gabber is finally having its moment in the mainstream Joe Muggs Fri 10 Jan 2020 13.00 GMT Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share via Email

“Strictly for the headstrong!” bellowed the rave MCs back in 92. In contrast to the smiles and hugs of acid house, the music, the dancing, the drugs were all becoming truly hardcore. This, in turn, birthed all kinds of mainly regional variations that have lasted from the 90s to today, most notably gabber – a relentless mix of superfast BPMS, distorted kickdrums and roared vocals that evoked the distilled nihilism of Rotterdam skinheads. While other equally aggressive techno and trance variants were given a platform in French “teknivals” and micro-enclaves in Moscow, Newcastle and Valencia, gabber was confined to its own diehard subculture. But now, following a gradual rise in underground interest, gabber and its hardcore cousins have become oddly popular again.

Of course, club culture is always porous: people like Hudson Mohawke have long repped their hardcore pasts. But 2019 saw gabber and hardcore boiling over into the mainstream. Siberian star Nina Kraviz put ever-higher BPMs into her Trip label and DJ sets. “It’s got that joyous energy that makes you want to jump around,” she says. “Some techno snobs say gabber is tasteless and overly simplistic. That makes me want play it even more!” Paul Woolford’s Special Request, meanwhile, packed shameless hardcore face-melters into his Vortex album. Indonesian duo Gabber Modus Operandi demolished arty festivals and grubby basement raves. Boiler Room hosted hard dance specials with young crews from across Europe, while American EDM’s absorption of Dutch hardstyle – a fusion of techno and hardcore – has reached truly terrifying levels through the likes of Guatemalan DJ Carnage.

Is this just hipsters ironically latching on to a grassroots culture? Well no, says eclectic London DJ Ifeoluwa. “People are frustrated, angry and disillusioned. They need to get negative energy out and not necessarily in a violent way.” Danny L Harle, formerly of PC Music and now running his own Harlecore parties, says a “new hardcore” scene has been brewing in Europe where crews such as Poland’s Wixapol, Italy’s Gabber Eleganza and France’s Casual Gabberz have “a genuine appreciation of the aesthetics of hardcore … re-appropriating some symbolism previously associated with the far right, using it instead to symbolise love and tolerance, especially in regards to the LGBT+ community”.