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Phasis - Moonwalk (Influence, 1994)
Captain’s log, stardate 7 August 1995. Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship ‘ardkore. Its weekly mission: to explore strange new music, to seek out new riddims and new extended mixes, to boldly go where no music radio programme has gone before.*
Broadcast from 1995 until 2004, first on MFM in Stellenbosch and later across the city on Bush 89.5, ‘ardkore was a unique outlet for Cape Town’s electronic musical prowess. A late night radio programme of brazen beats, sometimes mixed, often scratched and frequently stapled together. For nine glorious years it caused a weekly lurch in the force.
To those who remember, happy 16th birthday! Here then, the first track from that long-lost broadcast: bit o’ trance breaks straight from the möbius.
*Note: that wasn’t the actual intro. We might post the real one someday.
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Next up: Martin Sims
As hinted at in this month’s newsletter (do sign up via our site if you’re not on the list), we have a new contributor in November: Mr ‘ardkore, radio presenter/producer/instigator/engineer Martin Sims. Find out more about the radio part in this post. A brief look at his Last.fm suggests a month of dubstepping, bass wobbles and Ninja Tune XX fare (he has already been sneaking in some beats & pieces). We anticipate a few surprises along the way.
In between all the ‘ardness, expect the usual fascination bordering on obsession with Detroit techno from the resident selector.
Incidentally, tubes rock!
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Zomby - Euphoria (Where Were U In ‘92?, Werk Discs, 2008)
Kode9 talking about the UK hardcore continuum at Red Bull Music Academy, Melbourne 2006:
“Yeah, it’s what happened when acid house in the UK collided with Afro-Carribean music culture in London in particular. So it is dub, reggae and dancehall. And when these collided in the early ‘90s you got hardcore and then, most importantly for me, jungle, ‘93, ‘94, drum ‘n’ bass, UK garage, currently grime and dubstep. So the hardcore continuum is a way of understanding that evolution of music, because they are all kind of similar in a way. All different speeds, but at the same time coming from a similar place and always using pirate radio as a media platform.”
Pirate radio, the sound for the underground.
An extract from Simon Reynolds’ Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (Pan Macmillan, 1998):
“All through the Nineties, London’s ‘ardkore rave and jungle pirate stations have disrupted the decorum of the FM airwaves with their vulgar fervour and rude-boy attitude. Pirate DJ’s unleash a mad multi-generic mash-up of hip hop breakbeats, dub-reggae bass and Euro-rave synth-bombast. The MC surfs this polyrhythmic pandemonium with a freestyle Dada-doggerel of druggy buzzwords, party-hard exhortations and outlaw war-cries: sublime ‘nonsense’ that is purely invocatory, designed to bind its scattered addressees into a community, mobilise it into an army.”
Where were you in ‘92?
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Date: Monday 4 October 2010
Time: 8pm – midnight (SAST)
Venue: PASS Radio, 44 Long St, Cape Town, and streaming at http://panafricanspacestation.org.zaThe ‘ardkore assault team takes to the airwaves once more to delight and disturb you. Navigating the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, will be:
H
Tarquin Lessing
Bruno Morphet
Martin SimsExpect deep-dub-electro-jazz-bass-tech-hop with bleeps, sweeps and the odd crooner classic straight out of the fifth dimension. Join us in studio/lounge for drinks, or listen online at http://panafricanspacestation.org.za.
This music radio programme is brought to you by the Pan African Space Station and Liquid Fridge.
Thank you for listening.
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Welcome to the Liquid Fridge. After resuming our broadcast 2 weeks ago, so to speak, an introduction is probably in order. Kindly press the play button above for the intended soundtrack. ;-)
Once upon a time there was a radio show. For nine glorious years it caused a weekly lurch in the force. It was ‘ardkore. A late night radio programme of brazen beats, sometimes mixed, often scratched and frequently stapled together. Broadcast from 1995 until 2004, first on MFM in Stellenbosch and later across the city on Bush 89.5, ‘ardkore was a unique outlet for Cape Town’s electronic musical prowess.
So you know, ‘ardkore was three hours long and had four particular bits (from 1999 onwards; what came before is in storage, somewhere):
1. the beginning – this is when it, um, starts.
2. the letter mix – throwing together exciting tracks whose titles start with the same letter.
3. the guest slot – where guests play a game of “record-record”.
4. the liquid fridge – 60 minutes of downtempo and experimental sound to cool off the evening.Eager to meet fellow broad-minded individuals, the ‘ardkore collaborators took over Fuse “the dance lounge for talented listeners” (R.I.P… the club, not the listeners – hope you’re still out there) on 26 February 2003 for an evening of audiovisual tricknology. Another thirteen events and assorted collaborations followed until June 2007. The mission:
Liquid Fridge is a non-profit organisation devoted to advancing contemporary South African creativity by encouraging interaction between those who explore the creative uses of technology, and debating the issues of art, media, culture and society.
Fast forward to the present. The purpose of this blog is to continue sharing music from the electronic fringe and closer, in the spirit of the long-lost radio show. This is not the thumping tedium found on commercial radio’s “dance” shows. However, occasionally, we might detour into well-trodden territory for the sake of irony, or just because we can. We also intend to dig up and dust off the recordings from 2003 – 2007 for you.
In essence, this is inspired by a radio show, but it’s not a radio show. Sometimes it might sound like a radio show, because old habits die ‘ard.
Thank you for listening.
Feel free to leave a comment on our Facebook page, or join the Last.fm group for artist suggestions and related data mining. Or Twitter.
About the track: Biosphere - Valchirie (X-Rated: The Electronic Files, Boudisque Records, 2002). It’s exclusive to the compilation, which, incidentally, has a radio connection in that it was compiled by the hosts of an experimental music radio programme, X-Rated, broadcast Sunday evenings on Kink FM in the Netherlands… since 1995. Excellent space music.
