Breakcore, Dark Drum & Bass, noistruct Boris Otterdam
OTTERDAM INFLUENCES PART 3: MY TEACHERS ARE NOWHERE

• As a big fan of Spawn, when the movie was released in 1997, I went and saw it and bought the soundtrack because it was advertised as "techno meets metal", particularly with the heavy airplay Crystal Method and Filter were getting. The song that stood out, pretty much from the first time I heard it was Atari Teenage Riot and Slayer - No Remorse (I Wanna Die). On listening back to it in this mix, it sounds pretty primitive to me. Most of my tracks with amens are three times the speed and it's only really some bass, guitar and vocal samples over amen breaks at different speeds. But at the time. I'd never heard a snare roll that fast, an amen break I'd heard but never one distorted or time stretching or vocal glitching. All things I can make now on this very computer I'm typing on but then were like a revelation. I kept playing it over and over. I thought it was so cool. I didn't think anything more of it til I was watching Rage and I saw the video for "Sick To Death". That got me into it. After that I went and bought the album.

  • In early 1998 I started an art course at TAFE. One of the classes, I had to go all the way out to Joondalup for, for Animation. In the first class, I ended up talking to a guy there, who's name I can't even remember. He was right into ATR and by that point, I had bought "The Future Of War" and had thrashed it. He asked me if I heard any other "bands on Digital Hardcore Recordings". I said no and the following week he brought me in a burnt copy of "Harder Than The Rest". I took it home to my flat and blasted it and it was fucking amazing. I played it over and over and knew I had to get more.
    I went back to class the next week to ask him for more but he dropped out. Over the next 2 years, DHR became a bit of an obsession. I found albums by Christoph De Babalon, Bomb20, Fever and various solo records by Alec Empire and Carl Crack to name a few.

• By 2000 I was collecting a lot of breakcore both online, from record stores and mail order. One of the compilations I found at Perth record store Dadas was Ambush Records sampler "Mash The Place Up". Widerstand, Zhark and Praxis were all labels producing really dark and confronting breakcore. But Ambush out of South London was mostly originally junglists who wanted to push the style even further with noise and punchy, loud breakbeats and ragga records fed through distortion.
  At the record store there was no such thing as "breakcore" so my friend Adam and would trawl sections at the back of the store with names like "avant garde/noise/idm/glitch" and that was where we'd find breakcore record and CDs.

• After Current Value, DJ Hidden was one of the first dnb producers I followed. I first heard him in early 2003, when a Newcastle Australia label "Killing Sheep Records" released a compilation CD with Epsilon. 13th Hour, Paul Blackout, Overcast, Noize Creator, The Enemy and DJ Hidden called "Vile Techniques". Hidden's track "Empty Streets" which I still think is not only his best track he ever made but one of the most important dark dnb tracks of the 2000s - was the opening track of the compilation. The bassline was overdistorted and fed back. But the intro with a light, offtime beat over swirling noises and this amazing operatic vocal sample was what grabbed me. The timing of that bassline to come in made it an absolute classic. The simple beat was perfect. Basic drum machine patterns, no fills and that anthemic bassline. I spoke to a young breakcore producer years later and cited that track as how easy it is to use simplicity in beats to make a real impact. He responded "it sounded like he didn't really know what he was doing and it's not as good as his cut up amen tracks"....

.....er...yes.

PART 3: MY TEACHERS ARE NOWHERE

ATARI TEENAGE RIOT AND SLAYER - NO REMORSE (I WANNA DIE)
KILLOUT TRASH - SIGNE SAYS
EC80R - THE SHIT YOU DIG
SHIZUO - SWEAT
SONIC SUBJUNKIES - LIVE FROM JONESTOWN
EC80R AND MOONRAKER - SMASH HIM TO THE GROUND
ALEC EMPIRE - THE DESTROYER PT. 2
SONIC SUBJUNKIES - TURNTABLE TERRORIST
KILLOUT TRASH - STRAIGHT OUTTA BERLIN
DAFT PUNK - REVOLUTION 909
N1TRO - GO D(IE)J
CHRISTOPH DE BABALON - SEVENTH REST
BOMB20 - MADE OF SHIT
DAVID SKIBA - FAME AND GLORY
FEVER - TWO POLES
CANDIE HANK AND HANAYO - LES SUCCETTES
PATRIC CATANI - LONG TIME NO SPEAK
CARL CRACK - MEIN GEIST IST DEIN GEIST
SEWER RAT - HAMMERHEAD
DJ HIDDEN - EMPTY STREETS
DJ RAW - SHOGUN
DJ SAILOR MOON - RUN OUT OF IDEAS
DJ SPOOKY - PEACE IN ZAIRE
DJ SCUD - SOMETHING STRONGER
APHASIC - THE JACKAL
GIVE UP - GIVE UP
DJ SCUD AND CHRISTOPH FRINGELI - BODYSNATCHER
CHRISTOPH FRINGELI AND PURE - ANTICHRIST