Help me destroy my ears

April 12, 2009 3:29 PM

I am a longtime fan of harsh noise/power electronics/drone/etc., basically the more atonal parts of the musical spectrum. I have recently discovered the evolution of hardcore known as "splittercore"/"extratone". Help me learn more about this style of music.

Basically, from what I've gathered, both styles evolved from speedcore, which I'm familiar with. Splittercore seems to mean "speedcore with the BPM pushed up to REALLY REALLY FAST", and extratone seems to mean "speedcore with the BPM pushed up to REALLY INSANE CRAZY FAST". Opinions seem to differ on the exact BPM that differentiates extratone from splittercore, so any clarification on that would be helpful. But most of all, I'm looking for recommendations of producers, records, etc. that a neophyte should check out, the stuff that really defines the genre.

posted by DecemberBoy to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

I believe that extratone might be an inside joke with gabber djs.
posted by donabean at 3:47 PM on April 12, 2009

As an aside, Extratone looks like a joke to some degree, but it exploits something us harsh noise guys have been playing with for decades, the fact that somewhere around 20 repetitions per second (1200bpm / 20hz) our brain decides a beat turns into a pitch and visa-versa. I have heard Merzbow, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, John Oswald, Christian Marclay, and Aphex Twin exploit this phenomenon, just to name a few off the top of my head. Hell, John Cage was playing with this phenomenon in his 1952 piece WIlliams Mix.

It does not show up on Ishkur's guide, which is my go-to guide for techno offshoot genres.
posted by idiopath at 7:05 PM on April 12, 2009 [2 favorites]