Review Summary: Hell on ecstasy.
In the early 90's, rave music started getting categorized as either mellow or hardcore. The latter spawned a whole new branch of electronic dance music, characterized by high tempo's in the 160 to 200 range, the 'hoover' synth patch that was used in tracks like The Prodigy's "Charly", and of course the bass kicks which were compressed and distorted to the point where it makes a tone. In the beginning, songs sounded dark, aggressive, and experimental, given that there was no real right way to do hardcore, or gabber to some people in Europe. Though I believe somewhere around 1995, after the release of "Wonderful Days" by Charly Lownoise and Mental Theo, the scene started to be filled with a bunch of tracks that took on one of the subgenre's of hardcore simply known as 'happy hardcore'. It had a softer kick, cheesy synths, cheesy female or chipmunk vocals. Given it's commercial appeal, it became wildly popular and was definitely exploited like hell in the Netherlands.
Why you probably are unaware of this kind of music if you're from america? Well the entire scene saw a major crash in popularity not even five years after it became a genre before It was recognized as one in the states alongside house, drum n bass, trance, etc. I mean there were very small scenes in places like New York City and Chicago then, but they died out around this time as well. Not only would it take a few more years before it reached the level it was once at, but There needed to be a change within the sound of the genre as well, and far more experimentation in order to have it mature into the dark and loud alternative to other styles of electronic music...
Enter Denis Cohen-Scali (Al Core) and Daniel Técoult (Radium), the duo who are also known as Micropoint. These two were at the forefront of the french hardcore movement that started around the same time as happy hardcore was at it's prime. The difference between the two types of hardcore is quite jarring, having very atmospheric, abstract, industrial sounding hardcore. One of the only things I can compare this sound too is like Skinny Puppy minus the synthpop influences and played on 45RPM rather than 33 1/2.
On their 1999 release, "Neurophonie", Micropoint takes everything about their style of hardcore and brings it to an entirely new level. Not only is it dark, brutal, fast, and st the same time ambient... It's just plain weird. First off, there are no lead synths or melodies in any of these songs. However, this album is layered with a bunch of sounds accompanying the pounding drum patterns, which is quite normal for french hardcore past and present. Another thing noticeable, is that there is no silence between any of the tracks. Each track is mixed into the next one, making it a continuous listening experience from stat to finish. The tempos of each song also increase within each track as well. Starting from 160bpm with "Neurojuice", and finishing off with "Die, Vermin..." at about 242bpm.
One of the key things about this album is that it introduced the typical 'frecnhcore' kick in the tracks "Noise Theater" and "New Therapy" created by Radium. The kick consists of a short and punchy kick as the attack, and then a bass synth following after the kick, recreating decay for the bass kick. Not to say that the kicks on all the other songs aren't as good or different from each other. you have hypnotic and reverb heavy kicks on tracks like "Data Cops", tight and punchy ones like "Stimulation Binaire", and brutally distorted kicks found in "Lunatic Park" and "Die , Vermin..." The best thing on this album though is the experimentation. The "Dr Malsain's" track is only a short and interlude type of track, but is far from skipworthy from how simply odd it is.
This is just simply an excellent electronic album if you're a hardcore fan or not. It was a major turning point in the scene and proves that something along the lines of EDM, let alone hardcore, can in fact work both for the dancefloor (or moshing, take your pick) and a thrilling album.
