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WEEK 7 – ANALYSING A BREAKCORE TRACK

Written by

James Fitzgerald Burke

in

Diving into Bong-ra’s track “666 Mph” and evaluating the sounds, compositional and sonic choices used whilst linking it to the genre of Breakcore.

The track opens with rising sound that goes into a sample of “Bullfrog” by Johnny Moore & His New Blazers, using an electric guitar riff using bends that repeats throughout the first section of the track, this reminds me similarly of Eddie Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody”. This sample has delay on the end of the phrases and uses a chopped-up effect of reorder the sample after breaking it up for the repeats as it acts like a 4 bar loop which could reminisce “the dance floor-orientations” of 50s Rock n Roll music mentioned by “Playing favourites: Bong-Ra” by Resident Advisor.

https://ra.co/features/1481

To accompany the “heavy and slow” section of the opening of the track as stated in “Notes On Breakcore” documentary, a simple four on the floor beat is played using an electronic drum beat. It uses a filter pass that is automated constantly sounding like its sweeping. Its layered with heavy kicks that possibly could be slightly overdriven with a sweeping bass sound that comes back later in the track. This sounds like something influenced from Happy Hardcore which Breakcore took inspiration from as well as other genres as stated by “What is Breakcore? A Genre Field Guide” by WKNC 88.1 FM – North Carolina State University Student Radio.

What is Breakcore? A Genre Field Guide

Once the words “G Mart” are said which sound like a robotic text to speech voice, the song changes into a more typical breakcore track. The sweeping bass returns this time using more of a sub bass sound typical of drum and bass with interjections of vocal sounds chopped up with vinyl scratching sounds that are sequenced into the track. A chugging drop tuning guitar enters as a counterpoint to the synth line sounding very typical of the metal sound that is fused with the genre. Jason from Bong-ra had stated before “The BONG-RA project has always been deeply rooted in Metal” in an interview with Debemur-morti productions.

https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/news/1022_bong-ra-ink-deal-with-dmp.html

Around the 1 minute 35 second mark the breakbeat finally enters but only briefly but comes back in again around 1 minute 50 seconds. This makes the song feel a lot of faster, as the bass synth speeds up also, but the crash sounds are layered just like in typical jungle tracks, in which Bong- Ra and breakcore use typically to create a violent dance feel more routed in scenes like hardcore punk. The beat reminds me of the track “Hold your colour” by Pendullum which also has this strong beat in the song that gives feeling of these genres mashed up similarly to how Bong-ra does. A quote from Vice saying “Breakcore is the bastard hate child of jungle” alongside other genres in their article called “Breakcore” nicely summarise all the influences going on here.

Below are the links I used to help find my information on Breakcore and Bong-ra.

  1. Sample Comparison for 666Mph – Who Sampled
  2. Playing favourites: Bong-Ra – Resident Advisory
  3. Bong-Ra – Chain DLK
  4. Bong-Ra ink deal with DMP – Debemur-morti productions.
  5. What is Breakcore? A Genre Field Guide – WKNC 88.1 FM – North Carolina State University Student Radio.
  6. Down The Rabbit Hole With Breakcore / Jungle – What Is It & Why Is It So Nostalgic – The Patch Bay
  7. Breakcore – Vice Magazine
  8. “Notes On Breakcore 2006 DOCU HQ” – basstoelpel via YouTube
  9. Bong-Ra’s track “666bpm” – Bong-Ra via YouTube
  10. Johnny Moore & His New Blazers’ track “Bullfrog” – CheesebrewWaxArchive via Youtube
  11. Eddie Cochran’s track “C’mon Everybody” – Let’s Rock! via Youtube
  12. Pendulum’s “Hold your colour” – pendulumlive via Youtube

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