Terrorcore

What it is

The mid nineties split the Rotterdam sound in two directions at once. One half slowed down and got produced. The other refused, kept climbing past 220, and stopped caring whether the result was danceable. Terror is that half: distortion past the point where the kick keeps any body, tempos that make a backbeat physically hard to place, and samples chosen for how unpleasant they are. What keeps it from being pure noise is the rhythm, which is usually not straight. The kick lands on the beat and again on the last sixteenth before the next one, and that limp is the thing people who like this music actually like.

What it sounds like

A kick reduced almost entirely to its click and its distortion, with barely any low end left, because at 250 there is no time for a tail. A screaming electric snare on 2 and 4, mixed nearly as loud as the kick. Above it a horror film sample, a siren, a scream, or a pitched-down voice. There is no melody and there is no groove in the usual sense. What there is instead is the gallop from the kick pattern and a mix so compressed that the whole track occupies about two decibels.

Key elements

• The gallopA kick on the beat and another on the a, which is the last sixteenth before the next beat. Eight to eleven kick hits a bar, and the limp in them is the whole rhythmic identity.
• A kick with no bodyAt 250 a beat is 240ms, so the kick is mostly transient and distortion. The low frequency weight that gabber lives on has been traded for speed.
• The screaming snareAn electric snare, distorted past recognition, on 2 and 4 at close to kick level. It is the element marking the bar and it has to be loud to do that at this tempo.
• Samples chosen to disturbHorror film dialogue, sirens, screams, news footage. The tradition is confrontational and treats the sample as content rather than as decoration.
• No hats and no melodyThe grid has no hi-hat lanes. At eight kicks and two snares a bar there is no gap left for a top end, and nothing tonal survives the distortion anyway.

How to get them

• KickOverdrive a 909 kick until the body collapses, then cut it to 120ms and high-pass at 70Hz. That high-pass sounds wrong on its own and is correct here: it stops eight kicks a bar turning the low end into a solid block.
• Program the gallopKick on each beat at around 120 and on the a of each beat at around 100. The twenty point gap is what makes the pair read as one limping figure rather than as sixteenth notes.
• SnareElectric snare through two distortion stages and a band-pass around 1.5kHz, on 2 and 4, six decibels under the kick. Give it 150ms of bright plate so it cuts through the kick fizz.
• Do not add a subA sustained sub under a 250bpm kick pattern turns to a drone within one bar. If the track sounds thin, that is the genre and not a fault.
• Handle samples with careThe convention is to sample horror and news audio, and plenty of it is real footage of real people. Pitch it, bury it, or use a film. Clearing a sample is also an option.
• Write at 250 for realSet the project to 250 rather than writing at 125 and doubling the notes. The two produce different results once you start editing kick lengths, and the second approach quietly halves your resolution.

Reference points

Nasenbluten, DJ Skinhead, Bloody Fist Records, Noise Factory, Manu Le Malin, Lenny Dee, and the Industrial Strength catalogue. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements.