Gabber

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For other meanings of gabber, see gabber (disambiguation).

Gabber, gabba (pronounced gahba or gahbuhr in Dutch), or hardcore, is a subgenre of electronic music that is a subgenre of hardcore techno. The style was born in the Dutch city of Rotterdam in the early 1990s. 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. Gabber tracks typically also include samples and synthesised melodies with the typical tempo ranging from 160 to 220 bpm.

[edit] Origins

[edit] The term 'gabber'

The term traces its roots back to the Hebrew word "khaver", meaning 'mate' or 'friend'.

[edit] The origins of the gabber sound

In general the track We Have Arrived (1990) by Mescalinum United is considered to be the first gabber track. Hardcore/Gabber music is a fusion of techno and industrial blended in a dark atmosphere, experimental and hard. One of first Dutch gabber tracks was Rotterdam Termination Source's Poing (1992) which became a major hit. The record shop Midtown in the Nieuwe Binnenweg of Rotterdam is one of the shrines of Gabber music. In 1995-99 you could see fans dressed in Australian and Cavello tracksuits, Nike Air Max sport shoes, bomber jackets, and the majority of them would have shaven heads. The bald gabbers did not see male gabber fans with a head of hair as real gabbers and referred to them as "zwabbers", comparing their head of hair to a mop. Female fans often shaved the sides and back of their head and wore their hair in a pony tail. Later, in 1999 and beyond, their clothing style more and more changed and brands like Fred Perry, Lonsdale and Ben Sherman were added to their outfits. Nevertheless, in most other countries around the world, no dresscode is associated with Gabber, and this "training-suit/londsdale" code is actually mocked. Even in Holland, the trend, which culminated in the Happy Hardcore age, is disappearing.

The style began in the late 1980s, but some claim that it was diluted in 1995 by happy hardcore and, for hardcore fans, by commercialisation which resulted in a younger crowd being attracted to the scene. The commercial organisation ID&T helped a lot in making the music popular by organising parties (most notable are the Thunderdome parties) and selling merchandise. After the airing of what were felt by many hardcore fans as humiliating video clips, notably Hakke en Zage (1996) by Gabber Piet, some gabbers felt they were being made fun of. The name gabber is somewhat less used these days to describe this music style, specially due to this stigma created in the mid 1990s. Many would now prefer to call the style 'hardcore'. After surviving underground for a number of years, in 2002 the style has became more popular again in the Netherlands, although the sound is more mature, darker and industrial. Around the world, it never lost its original grip, and music was evolving and creating new subgenres and approaches, from Digital Hardcore to Breakcore, from Noisecore to Speedcore. Labels like Ant-Zen, Hands and other industrial/experimental ones use many Hardcore/Gabber elements and come close to what nowadays is called Darkcore. It was like if the "happy hardcore period" was overlooked, and Gabber kept evolving from the oldskool times, maintaining the original industrial harshness and approaching other styles in a genre which is now one of the most rich and detailed in electronic music, due to its variety and broad range of talented artists.

[edit] Nu style gabber

There was a somewhat divisive split in the hardcore scene starting in the late 1990s. Some producers started embracing a slower style characterized by a deeper, harder bass drum that typically had a longer envelope than was possible in the traditional, faster style. This newer sound was referred to as "New Style" (or "Nu Style") and "New Skool" and as the tempo got slower and slower it began to become similar to hard house. Many hardcore enthusiasts hated hard house and the club scene it typifies, and frequently DJs would be booed by one group of fans and cheered for by another at the same party, depending on the tempo and style of music they were playing. This is similar to the rivalry and mutual dislike that surfaced earlier between fans of "regular" hardcore and happy hardcore. Eventually the two styles met in the middle, and most gabber today is produced in a bpm range of 160-170. This is typically a little bit slower than the Rotterdam style of the mid-1990s and somewhat faster than the slowest Newstyle tracks that emerged.

[edit] Style

Angerfist, one of the currently biggest names in nustyle hardcore.

Gabber is characterised by its bassdrum sound. Essentially, it comes from taking a normal synthesized bassdrum and overdriving it heavily. The approximately sinusoidal sample starts to clip into a squarewave with a falling pitch. This results in a number of effects: the frequency spectrum spreads out, thus achieving a louder, more aggressive sound. It also changes the amplitude envelope of the sound by increasing the sustain. Due to the distortion, the drum also develops a melodic tone. It is not uncommon for the bassdrum pattern to change pitch throughout the song to follow the bassline.

The second frequently used component of gabber tracks is the "hoover", a patch of the Roland Alpha Juno synthesizer. A "hoover" is typically a distorted, grainy, sweeping sound which, when played on a low key, can create a dark and brooding bassline. Alternatively, when played at higher pitches, the hoover becomes an aggressive, shrieking lead. Faster gabba tracks often apply extremely fast hoover-patterns - gapping (changing the volume rapidly between the maximum and silence) is often used. Common elements also include guitar riffing (often done live at gabber parties) and MCing (more often than not also distorted).

Lyrics and themes of mainstream gabber usually deal with self-indulgence, sex, violence and anti-establishment. However, it must be noted that gabber songs usually carry a hint of irony in themselves - although some songs are meant to be taken seriously, this is by no means a trend. Lyrics in conscious gabber tracks usually revolve around psychiatric behaviour to conspiracy theories, apocalyptic revelations and social criticism, albeit a large portion of these themes come from speech samples taken from movies and other songs.

The aforementioned two subgenres of gabba differ in essentially one thing: the tempo.

• Oldskool gabba, staying true to its mentality, defines "hardness" in speed: tracks rarely go under 160 BPM, and bassdrum rolls often go up to a speed where the beats themselves are hardly distinguishable from each other.
• Nuskool gabba, however, slows the speed down to 150 BPM, but extends the length of the bassdrum so the bass-frequency resonation keeps on longer. (In this aspect, "nugabba" obviously cannot be considered less powerful than its precursor, although slower hardcore is often less energetic.) A typical style is a style best made known by Rotterdam Terror Corps: the beats are divided into triplets and all hoover notes are played in a short, staccato-like fashion, giving the song a march-like feel.

[edit] Subdivisions

The gabba genre has a number of different styles related to it, including speedcore, terrorcore, hardcore, breakcore, darkcore, frenchcore, hardstyle, jumpstyle, bouncy techno, nu style gabba, extratone and noizecore.

[edit] Misconceptions

A common misconception about gabber is that it is loud but primitive music. The style (somewhat limited by the fans' taste) evolved during the years into a creative genre, where complex rhythmic and melodic combinations are more and more common. In more recent gabber, melodies and drums are overlayed with various effects, which add richness to the music. Gabber has grown into a serious style of music where producers are encouraged to experiment, largely because the limited characteristics of hardcore, which force artists to approach several different music styles to create memorable music.

Because of the extreme tempo and aggression of the music, and the shaven heads and clothing preference being associated with skinheads or neo-nazis, some generalize that gabber fans are all members or supporters of neo-rightist or neo-Nazi groups. For example, in the early 1990s, gabber gained a following in the very small neo-fascist rave scene in the American Midwest and in Germany.^[1] Most gabber fans do not belong to the aforementioned groups, and many producers have released tracks that vocally speak out against for example, racism. (Hardcore United)

The gabber scene is also often associated with the use of speed, ecstasy, ketamine and other drugs. This, of course, is also just generalization stemming from the generalizations over the electronic music or rave scene - while it is true that many drug-user gabber fans exist, it is no way required.

[edit] See also

• List of gabber artists

[edit] Record labels

• Sensory Violation
• Mokum Records
• Industrial Strength Records
• Traxtorm Records
• Rotterdam Records
• Enzyme Records
• Neophyte Records
• Masters of Hardcore Records
• Mid-Town Records
• Thunderdome Records
• Audiogenic Records
• H2Oh Recordings
• Evolution Records
• The Third Movement
• Ruffneck Records*
• Digital Hardcore Recordings

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Silcott, Mireille. Rave America: New School Dance Scapes. (Toronto: ECW Press, 1999), 114-117.

[edit] External links

• Belgium Gabber Startpage!!! Hakkuh Terrorr!!
• HardSound
• gabber.goedbegin.be
• Portuguese Hardcore Gabber Portal with many info about Hardcore and Thunderdome
• Geordie Gabba Travellers (Newcastle, UK) Hardcore ,speedcore and more,videos and madness.
• Extreme Banner Exchange Hardcore Techno banner exchange program
• STL - Speedcore Top Links Top 100 hardcore, speedcore and terror music links
• Geordie Gabba Mafia (Newcastle, UK) Artists and DJ's from Newcastle (UK) Gabber scene. Run by DJ Smurf