Lately there is more and more tracks that melt hardcore techno with darkstep. There is quite a fews names allready to name this sound : Core’n’Bass, Crossbreed for example. I call it Brokencore.
Most of the time theses tracks combine huge overly distorted bassdrums with phat snares. It seems to me that this is something really fresh and exciting for darkstep. Of course the use of distorted kick with snare is not something new.
Breakcore have allready about this, you could also have breakbeat in uk hardcore but what make this brokencore exciting is the emphasis on industrial aggressive bass tones from hardcore and the broken feels of darkstep. Breakcore have a really punkish feel. it all about creating digital chaos. On the other hand brokencore use also extremely distorted tones but it’s about harshness and heaviness. It’s a bit like metal and punk hardcore. They’re both distorted guitar based music but punk is about chaos whereas metal is about heaviness.
What make Brokencore so good also is that you can combine it with hardcore techno tracks or darkstep tracks. It make mix more complex and creative.
It give also lots of new space to create. Dnb is a really clean and fast music but with some hardcore fuel it turns it into something far more extreme. Hardcore give brokencore a really harsh sound design when darkstep dnb give a broken rythm and emphasis on speed feeling with ghost notes.
Of course more and more producer are experimenting things with hardcore kick but i hope it will be only a new direction. What make it great is to keep mix diverse and complex. 6 hours of brokencore could be perhaps boring. But mix than go back and forth from march darkstep, roller, technoid, snare rush stuff to brokencore to indus hardcore and so on : brokencore is not only about putting hardcore kicks with snare it’s about crossfertilization of hardcore and darkstep
it’s about making extreme journey of dark electronic music. its about experimenting and pushing the envellope of dark extreme yet dancefloor music
If you want to listen to this kind of sound just search through SBR with this tag
Check also the BrokenCore soundcloud group and submit your tracks
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Satanical Bots Ritual (the webzine of the darkside nation) 
Please could you give us reference tracks or artists? Many thx 🙂
Check these labels for example : future sickness, nekrolog1k, genosha 175, union, sustained
OK right now dude! Very nice paper BTW.
– How to differentiate brokencore from other known subgenres like skullstep or drum’n’core? Finally are there different production methods with could help us to see delimited fields? Finally what’s the difference between brokencore and skullstep, drum’n’core in your mind?
– Something really amused me: whereas around 1993 breakbeat hardcore producers started to split themselves into darkcore and happy hardcore production, I feel there’s actually a trend to produce merged harsh beats / hardcore bass drums .
skullstep is just a funny name for darkstep. It’s the industrial part of drum’n’bass.
brokencore is darkstep merged with industrial hardcore.
[…] The blog has started some years ago and was only around 25 hit per days the first few months. Nowadays it’s around 350 par days. There is now a tweeter and a facebook fan page to keep you up to date about darkstep. The blog is now also about industrial hardcore and take account of the mutation of darkstep and hardcore with what i’ve called Brokencore […]
thxfor this fine analysis
greets from france