Low Entropy's Producer Diary: When The Kiss Of The Vampire becomes Your Only Friend

Almost by accident, I stumbled upon this "old" track by me again. Because I saw a clip of a DJ playing it in a club, a few days ago... but the track itself if from 2016.

Or rather, it is two tracks, but I made them "back 2 back". At least conceptually, the production itself was several days (or weeks?) apart.
This was not done at the best time in my life, I felt very depressed, isolated, doomed... in those days. And, Doomcore is of course the right music for that, and to express those emotions, too!

I think you can feel the sense of dread and "doom" in those tracks...

They were a bit unusual for me, in multiple senses.
First, there is a very straight forward structure to the track, at least at the root...
There is a "percussive" phase for several minutes, where the drums come in, and the other elements (snares, hats, and so on). Then, there is a sudden "pause", silence, until a sampled monologue plays out, that we can listen to.
Silence again, until the first synths come in... and slowly an entire melody builds into the track.
And finally, the "beats" drop again, while the synth fades in and out... and even additional notes are introduced.

Those different synth "lines" or melodies are part of a harmonic whole, and here is the catch: it's outside western tuning, or most of western music at all. The melody and harmony is based on a hexatonic scale, if i remember correctly. 6 notes per octave! So it lies inbetween the "normal", heptatonic scale with C D E F G A B (plus and minus a few flat squares...), and the pentatonic scale, which was common in ancient music I think (egypt?), or modern jazz maybe.

I was always mesmerized by the fact (or my impression?) that chord progressions in hexatonic harmony sound completely alien, otherworldly and unreal, suddenly (same could be said about pentatonic, btw).

After this, everything fades out, and fades to black again. Which is something I rarely do in other tracks. There is usually another big thing, a "big bang", after the climax(es) in the middle part, at the end of my tracks.

The themes of the tracks are linked, too, maybe like an inverted mirror to each other.
"Kiss of the Vampire" tells the tale of vampire seduction, but the roles are inverted, too. I think there is a very bittersweet feel to it, there is certainly euphoria, serenity in the promise of eternal life, even if it means life in eternal darkness... and then, in the end, the monologue is interrupted because the vampire itself seemed never interested in the deal (another unusual thing).

While "The Only Friend" has a monologue about deep, deep friendship, comradery, care and support, being "thick as thieves". This sounds very nice and moving again, but with the ominous sounds, and the whole "mood" to this monologue, we might assume that things are not quite as they seem... or are they?

So, both tracks are about a strange "conflict". There is hope, trust, but doom and gloom, too. And both seem somewhat linked, yet none of this feels... it does not feel *that bad*, more like a detached musing, on the strange and confusing circumstances of our lives, our very human lifes.
I mean, in essence, the "treacherous friend" in the second track means that things could be worse than it seems... but the "life saving vampire" of the first track also shows that things might indeed be much better than we imagine them to be...!
But for now, it seems we are stuck in the middle.

I remixed the tracks more than once, sometimes with "harder" drums, or different synth sounds.
These were released on Legs Akimbo Records (one of my fav UK labels!), Antropofagia Records from Brazil, HardSoundMusic (the label by the semi-eponymous online radio station), ENDE Records from Australia, and a few other labels.

Music:

Kiss of The Vampire ("Techno" version on a Russian label) https://doomcoreinitiative.bandcamp.com/track/kiss-of-the-vampire-special-2018-edit
The Only Friend (Techno remix) https://legsakimborecords.bandcamp.com/album/legs-net-138-resistance
The Vampire's Kiss (a more recent, Gabber / Speedcore version) https://rotjecore.bandcamp.com/track/horrortrax019-low-entropy-the-vampires-kiss-bleed-me-dry-mix

111 Free Hardcore Techno Drums

Here is the story so far:

I'm a Hardcore and Techno producer since the 90s (with lots of gigs and release experience), I began creating sample packs out of my old tracks and uploaded them to the internet, then I began creating new drum samples in a similar way, I ended up using them in my own tracks, too.
Then I decided to do some dedicated samples where I "research" drum sounds that are unconventional, experimental, surreal... and not commonly used in Techno or electronic music.
But, after all this lofty and brainy research, I arrived at the point where I came to the motion of... "**ck it". Why not simply do some nasty, harsh, straight-forward kicks again?
*And* as a plus, I could use some of the techniques I learned during the "drum research", for this!

So these are some kicks again, they aim straight for the adrenaline and fun and party... should be easy to use, just load them into your sampler and daw, and you should have some good results right away... or, at least, very soon!

Not just Gabber and Hardcore kicks are here, of course, but also those that could be used for Electro, Industrial Techno, Gothtronics... you know the score!

But, let me add, that for the HC kicks, I tried to make them ultra-hard and aggressive... did I succeed? You be the judge, my friend!

I'll shut up now... enjoy the kicks!

credits:

all drums and sounds created by me, low entropy.

license:

feel free to use these samples for any public, private, intimate, or commercial purpose.
would be *very* cool if you credit me, but it's not strictly necessary.

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/111-free-hardcore-techno-drums

Wolves

 

Kotzaak

 

Antares (The Nucleus Project: Scorpii Nox)

Another entry in the nucleus project. Read more about the project here:

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/nucleusproject-part-1-les-champs-m-talliques

This one is rather frantic, and chaotic.

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/antares-the-nucleus-project-scorpii-nox

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: My long road to becoming an Acid-Core producer

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: My long road to becoming an Acid-Core producer

Acidcore was not a love at first sight for me (or, more precisely, "first sound"). While other electronic and "hardcore" styles like Gabber, Speedcore, Breakcore, Hardtrance, Electro... enamored me immediately (more or less)... when I heard my first Acidcore tracks, I went more like "meh".
These were tunes on Fischkopf records for example, or Industrial Strength, UK labels, or even some of the more acid-ic Mokum ones.
This stuff felt very monotone and repetitive too me... also quite "minimal". There just seemed to be a lack of action in these tracks, and not much going on...
In the 90s, I decided that Acidcore was the only subgenre of Hardcore, that I was not very fond of...

The only exception were some tracks by Lasse Steen, those that, in my opinion, had more variety, with lots of melodies and weird tempos, and so on. For example of the Senical and Skullblower variety. And a few tracks by other artists.

But actually, my path to Acidcore had begun, even before I got into "Hardcore proper". During vacation, a trip to a small, "90 souls" village at the border of the norther sea, on reclaimed land, that did not even exist and was the Atlantic ocean a few hundred years ago, before humans walked there, and created that land out of the ocean.
Where i swapped tapes with another teenager my age, which was hardcore punk on one side, acid techno (first time i heard that stuff!) on the other, and while i did not like the sound at that age either, i concluded that it had... potential, so to say.

Another big "woah" event was when i heard some acid tracks by PCP, especially of the 303 nation kind.

But yeah... let's say i was still not convinced.
Until the year 2000, when I went with some friends to a "hard trance rave revival party", here in hamburg, and the first hour was... very oldschool acid and techno.
And it really felt like an enlightenment!
Listening to the tunes, at night time, in a dark club, under ultra and violet light, on a loud sound system, dancing with the freaks, under the influence of caffeine... completely changed the sound to me.
I think that especially the "played out loud" thing changes acid... a lot! all those frequencies, no longer tame and distant, but buzzing around you, getting, getting to, and into your head and mind and soul... ready for liftoff!

also, that year, i had an early producer breakthrough, because a demo CD-R by me (hah!) became quite popular, within a secret community hidden behind the underground "circuit 8" website... which led to me exchanging CD-Rs, tapes, and demos, with quite a lot of people (like Somatic Responses, Christoph de Babalon, Praxis records) and also with Daria Blax from Drop Bass Networks, who sent me a kind of "bootleg mix" (hah!) with the acid classics, from berlin, london, cologne... and that sound blew my mind too!

after this, there was "no holds barred" anymore, i got deep into the acid...
and this led to my first "proper hits", hits in the underground sense, of course... my release on black monolith records, a new york adjacent label, my bookings at tresor, suddenly i played acidcore in front of 1000s of people... literally. was a wild (acid) ride!

and then, many, many (and many) years later, i finally got into more mellow acid too, which led to another wave of releases, that then were mentioned in the big magazines again and was a bit like a "return to fame" for me... "fame", in the underground sense of course, or let us rather call it popularity, or maybe "notoriety".

but all these years, my acid and acidcore tracks go back to the idea, that acid works best, and only "works", if it's made for the party situation in mind, for nights of endless dancing, for the combination of loud frequencies, a gathering of people, and black white flicker-flackering lights, powered by strobes.

and, paradoxically, that the tracks even sound (much) better during "home listening sessions", when they are made with that original thought in mind!

Music:
Urban Uprising https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/urban-uprising-143-bpm-re-mastered
Farewell Old World https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/farewell-old-world-original-master
Really Into The Space Stuff https://zuur-nl.bandcamp.com/track/really-into-this-space-stuff

Low Entropy + Sigma - 8 + Ægoist - Queens of Light and of the Darkness

after the two debut single releases, here is the first full length album by the Industrial Speedcore Black Metal project.

The "Speedcore" part needs to be put in quotes, though, as the band opened up to a lot of other influences and genres... there are concepts out of doomtechno, oldschool rave, gabber, ambient, "industrial hardcore" to be found on the album... and on the metal side of things, it's not just black metal riffs anymore, but maybe also a bit of influence from death and different styles...
there is even an electronic "black metal dub" instrumental at the end of the album!

the project is made up of low entropy, an "experienced" electronic music producer from hamburg, germany, who did lots of releases since decades (in other styles). Sigma 8, a black metal guitarist from chile, who also does oldschool rave and breakbeat music on the side (or is it the other way round?). and Ægoist, a witch from germany, who provides the vocalisation for the whole thing.

the theme of the album is "Queens of Light and of the Darkness".
in honor of deities and goddesses that represent liminality, duality, the crossroads. knowledge, healing, compassion, transformation and metamorphosis.
Like Hecate, Lilith, Sophia, The Morrigan, and The Goddess herself.
credits

Omnicore Records 85
Slowcore 74
Doomcore Records 239

Credits:

Low Entropy - Producing, Programming, Synths, additional Vocals
Sigma 8 - Guitars, Producing
Ægoist - Vocals

1. Hecate (Queen of Light) 05:39
2. Lilith (Queen of Knowledge) 03:15
3. The Morrigan (The Phantom Queen) 06:40
4. Sophia (Queen of Wisdom) 06:51
5. Hecate, our Healer 06:18
6. The Goddess 06:53
7. The Labyrinth 06:42
8. Hecate Ritual Core 03:48
9. Dark Entrance 12:58
10. Black Metal Dub 13:49

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/queens-of-light-and-of-the-darkness-2

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Being a Hyperdisciplinary Artist and learning about the "Art Core"

I am not only a music producer, but here are some other ventures into art and other things I did or do:

Journalist
Author (of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books)
Visual Artist
Video Director
Label owner
Party promoter
Music producer (hah, mentioned this one already)
Music "teacher" (just online and one on one, not in a university)
Hobbyist cook
Anarchist / Activist
Traveler (hiking / biking)
Code writer

And likely a few other things as well.
And, no, I do not write this list to boost my ego (well, maybe a little bit), and I make no claim that I am good in all, or even any of these disciplines.
But let's just say that I got good feedback in every one of these "fields", and, now and then, even received "official accolades", like being featured in an established magazine or other cool stuff, for all of them.
Well, maybe not for the cooking and hiking. Not yet, at least (ironic smile).

Also, this list seems a bit disjointed and disconnected (video director and hobby cook?) which brings me to the point I *actually* want to make:

I think all of these "art forms", hobbies, or activities, are not very different and apart from each other, but instead they are very similar.

For example, by studying movie directors, reading up on movies, movie techniques etc. I learned a lot of things, that do not just relate to the world of movies, but can quite well be used in music production, too.
(Just one random example, related to this example: the structure of movies, the segmentation of movies can be used in song structures, too. Why not make a cool song or track, with a prologue, first act, second act, third act, and epilogue, too?).

The same goes for writing computer code and music production. I was one of the computer kids of past decades (yeah, i was quite the nerd, sorry) and when i got into music production, DAWs, tracker programs as a teen, my first thought was actually "these programs work just like writing code! glad that i already learned how to do this."

I won't tell how cooking influences my music production (at least not right now), and I agree this might be a claim that is a bit more on the bizarre side. But, hey, cooking is about combining different ingredients, too? Just like songwriting!

Part 2

From my own experience, it is one of these big "collective secrets" kept by successful artists (and a few not-so-successful artists, too). that *art* must not be segmented and cut up into lots and lots of tiny genres, topics, fields, realms. But that art is art itself and stays art.
No matter if it manifests as music, as movies, as poetry... or if it merely manifests as taking a walk in nature and watching a beautiful sunset.

Art is made up by your very own and unique thoughts, emotions, views of the world, sentiments, grievances, and hopes.
And it might not be very important whether you channel these and manifest them as music... as poetry... as movies... or merely go for a walk and enjoy a beautiful sunrise.

And if you think about it, the best artists are usually the ones that worked in more than one field. Like musicians that did soundtracks for movies. Or even music video producers that became real movie directors.

Part 3

So, I think there is a core of art, and this "core" is the same for *any* form of art. No matter what kind of art you do.
And this "core" is not (only) a vague, emotional, intuition thing, but there are very real, accurately explainable techniques to be found inside this core.
and if you know these, you can apply these to every art, in music production just as much as in visual art or poetry.
These techniques and key points stay the same, all the time.

Now to the next point, which brings us full circle:
At the same time, there are indeed differences between the arts, and I think you can only understand and use some of these techniques if you learn another discipline of art.
For example, by reading up on movie directing and on the mindset behind movie production, i learned techniques that i could use (and do use) in music production, that i would never have learned if i just stayed within my own realm of... music.

so, all ego and other undue silliness aside: if you are an artist, it will do you (very) good if you try to learn (and to create) a different kind of art, too!
for example, if you do visual art - try to write a book too.
if you are a musician, shoot your own no budget diy short movie
if you are a poet - write a script for a theatre play! (even if it never gets made)

and you do not even need to be good at it, or excel at it, or get praise for it...
by doing a different mode of art, you will learn things that will come in very handy and useful for your "main" art, too!

Example Links:
Music: https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/frequency-whales
"Movie" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-IMaRJDzrY
Book: https://archive.org/details/pcp-legends-in-their-life-the-unofficial-planet-core-productions-book/
Journalism: https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/

Low Entropy's producer diary: Writing the world's slowest Hardcore and Techno track or: I'm Creeping Doom at 1 BPM

So, in 2017 I really got into producing Slowcore Techno again. I already wrote a lot about this "bizarre" genre elsewhere, so if you are new to this, I refer you to my other tracks. And no, it's not (really) related to the guitar based Slowcore genre of the same name...
So... where was I? Ah, I will give you an introduction anyway. "Slowcore" is Hardcore and Techno music below 130 bpm... and some tracks get *really* slow, slow, as in, like, 80 bpm, 50 bpm, or even less.

In the 90s, I had already helped driving up the tempo threshold in the opposite direction... by having the first, full, from-start-to-finish 800 bpm hardcore track released on vinyl in 1998!

So it felt almost "obvious" to me I now needed to do the inverted case, too.
I decided to do a track with 1 bpm. yes, one fudging bpm only. one beat, in one minute. sounds almost biblical right? like an apocryphal proverb... not sure.

Either way, to go get back to the point... I did one, and called it Thunderdoom. Obviously a nod-by-name, to a popular Hardcore compilation series. I put it on my soundcloud, and the feedback was positive.
But the naysayers were banging on my door quite quickly. "this is not really 1 bpm".
Because both the percussion and melody ran at a... let's say faster speed, and just the bass drum itself, did a loud "bang" every 60 seconds.

which is a kind of buckwhip argument in my opinion... 1 bpm is 1 bpm. most speedcore tracks have slower elements too, and this does not make them any less... legit.

naysayers come and naysayers go... but they did not blame this on any "meagre" productions skill on my part... instead they said i failed because it was simply impossible... it was technically impossible to produce a track, that really is 1 bpm speed, and would still sound sensible or enjoyable to anyone.

this "enraged" the need to defend the entire slowcore genre inside of me...

so, back to the producer room again.
and i did one, where the entire clock of the track really clocks at 1 beat a minute...

this one was called "creeping doom" (maybe... just maybe, a nod-by-name, to a popular track by a band called metallica... which also a has cool, slow middle part, btw).

so, let's get down to the production details:

the beat hits home one time every sixty seconds.
because there is a lot of "space" inbetween each "hit", this allows the kick drum to be really, really, distorted, and deep, with lots and lots of bass frequencies... and an overkill of reverberation, delays, and echos!

the percussion elements are at each 16th note (which means, for example, a snare drum could come in after 15 seconds... but not one second earlier).
same goes for the melody and the pads.

i decided to use one of my favorite chord progressions again, four descending chords separated by notes or half notes...
plus i added some additional notes, too.

i sustained the chords as, obviously, nothing else (or not much) would happen in the 59 seconds before the next hit... in the track.


bang, bang, bang, bang, track finished, it goes up and released, and the naysayers go "uhmm... okay, 1 bpm is really possible after all".
the track became one of the most popular tracks i ever did, and by the end of 2017, it appeared in at least one "best music of 2017" charts in one of the well known music mags (forget which one, but i guess it was either groove or the wire). it keeps getting mentioned again and again, also by the music press, in the years that followed.

and i suppose it also generated enough interest so that other things happened, for example that a record on my own label got reviewed by the music mags again. and more good things.

and, i do not say this as "ego", but i try to give an advice for other, or new producers this way:

it is always good to go on a dare, a dark dare, and to risk a lot with your projects, and your music. and do not listen to the naysayers ever!

and that way, you can get a lot of feedback and reactions, and very good things!

Music:

Creeping Doom https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/low-entropy-creeping-doom the original
Thunderdoom https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/thunderdoom-1-bpm-2 the other track
Creeping Doom (Nekra Damage Remix) https://cultureofviolence.bandcamp.com/track/creeping-doom-nekra-damage-remix a cool remix (with faster bpm)

Drum Tracks (Or journey to the Earth core)

What does a hardcore techno track need, really? Or let us reframe the question, what does techno, no, what does music need, really? A drum, a good drum... yeah, and that it's! True for music (any maybe life) in general, but especially for the hardcore variant of techno.

Because hardcore always has been about stripping techno down to the bare goods (usually no cheesy vocals, unnecessary funk, house shuffles or other shenanigans in early hardcore.)
so let us strip it down even further, until there is just the drum. The distorted hardcore "kick", hammering, hammering on, hammering on and on... and on... and on and on! and on!

Well, this is not exactly true for these tracks. There are few, sparse, and minimal... "other things". Metal hits, clanks, clonks, a bit of percussion... and noise, lot's of noise!

In some parts of the tracks. But beyond that, it is one long, wild, one hour and seven bass drum ride, so i hope you paid the tickets for this fare, folks! Segmented into 25 "shorter" tracks.

And, overally, it is an excursion in kick drum research, because there are not your usual hard techno or gabber kicks, but very experimental.

Info+Download:

Drum Tracks (Or journey to the Earth core)
by Godfather Death (Omnicore Records 85)

1. Techtonic Movements (Surface Level) 00:19
2. Techtonic Movements (Upper Crust) 03:55
3. Techtonic Movements (Oceanic Crust) 00:52
4. Techtonic Movements (Lower Crust) 01:57
5. Techtonic Movements (Lithosphere) 04:05
6. Techtonic Movements (Mohorovičić discontinuity) 02:22
7. Plutonic Matter (Upper Mantle) 01:16
8. Plutonic Matter (Asthenosphere) 02:12
9. Plutonic Matter (Transition Zone) 01:56
10. Plutonic Matter (Lower Mantle) 01:55
11. Plutonic Matter (D″ region) 03:04
12. Plutonic Matter (Gutenberg Discontinuity) 01:42
13. Crystal Sphere (Outer Core) 01:52
14. Crystal Sphere (Liquid Iron) 03:17
15. Crystal Sphere (Theia) 02:20
16. Crystal Sphere (Inner Core-Outer Core Boundary) 04:05
17. Crystal Sphere (Inner Core) 02:08
18. Crystal Sphere (Solid Ball) 01:57
19. Crystal Sphere (The Ultimate Center) 03:39
20. Below or Above (Where are we) 00:49
21. Below or Above (Below) 02:10
22. Below or Above (Deeper) 04:05
23. Below or Above (Ambiguous) 03:15
24. Below or Above (Above) 02:44
25. Below or Above (Higher) 09:08

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/drum-tracks-or-journey-to-the-earth-core

Producer's Diary: A Sönke in the City of Sönkes

My first name is Sönke, and even for Germans that is a kind of weird name. And internationally, when dealing with labels, or meeting other DJs, producers, etc., they often have a hard time pronouncing it. (I can't even explain how it is pronounced... maybe something like sun-kah... but not quite!).
But let's get back to Germany. When I was a kid, I was the only one with a name like that, and most people did not even know it, and were confused... and they could not pronounce it either.
Not sure if such medium level name intolerance exists in other countries, too, but especially with adults, teachers, and parents of other kids, i felt like they would go "yuck" and do two steps back on the inside, in the moment they heard my name. a lot of them decided to just call me "sören" from then on, a name that was a bit more common then mine, and no correctional attempts on my part could ever change their minds.

maybe it's because the German government is highly restrictive when it comes to children names, and actually bans or prevents parents from giving their children the name they want. and when i grew up, most kids indeed only had the "standard" names like martin, jan, christian... (amongst my childhood friends alone, there was something like 4 christians and 3 martins). and of course, in germany, even the slightest detail that makes you "different" from the norm, in the eye of the norm, can become a huge problem.
so having a name that was not "part of the crowd" made me stick out like a sore thumb in that crowd, as weird as that might sound. it was not too bad, but it still felt... weird!

So, Sönke is actually a northern german name, a Frisian name. I think it's common in parts of Scandinavia, too, and the Netherlands have a lot of Frisian people, too (not sure if they use the name, too).
And when I was a kid, almost every year my family went to Nordfriesland ("northern frisian land") for vacation.
I think I mentioned this before, it was some "strange" place, but for natural reasons: a huge chunk of the area was new and reclaimed land, that had literally been build out of the ocean, for hundreds of years, by people without most of modern technology. and now there were houses, supermarkets, cows and cars, and pylons, standing firm on terrain that had been water and waves just a few hundred years before.

either way, i never felt odd or strange for having the name "sönke" there, because it was quite common. everyone knew that name, when i told others my name they did not go "huh?" "what?!", i did not need to repeat it endlessly... which made quite the difference for me, as a kid!

there was even a polder called "sönke nissen koog", if i recall correctly there was a "bäckerei sönke" (bakery sönke), there were sönke streets, there were famous majors or scientists that had been called sönke, i think i even read the name "Sönke Sönksen" somewhere... now my life was complete!

Part 2

and why do i tell you this story from my childhood, that might even sound a bit childish?
because i think there is a deeper truth to be found here.
i stood out for being a "sönke" in the place i had lived all my life. but just by moving a bit more than 200 kilometres, to the city of sönkes, i no longer stood out, and was at home - in a sense.

and the same is true for producing, or making music, or even liking music. or making art in general. maybe you are a producer and you think noone likes your stuff, or that your productions are bad.
but that might not mean that your music actually is bad, or needs improvement. maybe you just need to change your audience, your crowd, your social surrounding... and maybe there is a place where you will feel at home, or understood, with your art!

so, instead of trying to worry about how to "improve" and change your art (or giving up!), rather think about changing the place where you spread your art, where your art exists, where you exist as an artist. this can be a purely online thing, but it can also mean actually moving to a new place. but in all likelihood, it could mean changing your "scene", and if your scene does not exist yet, why not invent and build it yourself?

or if you are not an artist, just a fan or listener, the same thing might be true.

and the same is true if you think your art is good, but that noone would ever understand it, and you have been rejected by labels, promoters, etc... maybe you just need get to a different crowd, and move around a bit...

and that's my message to you, by a Sönke, who once visited the City of Sönkes.

Tracks:
Sönke's First https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/1987-2014-s-nkes-first
Call My Name https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/call-my-name

Gravity Wins

Did you know that? When you ask people what their favorite is, on Doomcore Records and the sublabels (Slowcore and Omnicore Records), a lot of them will say Turbine Trip's Mechanical Sun EP from 2024.

And yeah that one really is one of a kind. Turbine Trip has a very unique style.

Futuristic, cinematic melancholy-melodies... drumnbass / crossbreed drums... and pure speedcore-gabba! Plus lots more stuff, and I think there is a hardtrance / uk hardcore feel even. Ah, why should I describe it - it's best you listen and experience it yourself!

Tracklisting:

1. Between Floating and Falling
2. In Distance
3. Considering Time
4. Whyweight
5. Surfacevoid

All tracks built on Renoise between 2024-2026
as another attempt to escape adult crash.

https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/gravity-wins

Producer diary: shoutin' in the wind or: how to field record your own vocals while looking weird

So, I needed to do vocal recordings for one of my tracks (called "gabber cooking").
i don't have a dedicated vocal recording room, and my main production room is not optimized for vocals, too.
so, when i record vocals, there is sometimes a strange reverb (of the room) or my vocals do not sound optimal for other reasons related to this.
also, since i am doing my music in my home, a regular residential block flat, there can be sounds of neighbours, baby, dogs barking, that might get in the vocals, this way. (thinking about it, barking dogs would be kind of cool!)

and yeah i must admit, it feels a bit awkward to shout into the microphone, when the neighbours might be listening and not really knowing, what's going on... haha.

i should also mention that i had been doing a lot of field recordings lately... recording owls, birds, the whispering wind, or the sound of ice (on iced lakes)... near fields, in forests, near lakes, swampy things, flowers, trees, in the sunshine, looking at pylons... and all of this was super cool and felt idyllic... !

so, thinking of this, this day, i thought: fudge it! i jumped on my bicycle, and decided to record my vocals out in the open... field recording my own voice, so to say, haha!

doing all this was "easier said than done", though...! i needed to find a place that was preferable for recordings, away from streets and loud cars, supermarkets, school sport places, other "noise factories"...
and preferably not too crowded! (and cooked!)

so i went to the edge of the city, and the edge of the forest (railway and river were nearby, too).
there was a kind of path (or rather, road) for pedestrians, and bicycles, next to some upper middle class condo type homes, elevated, one could overlook the forest... to a tiny degree, it actually reminded me of watching the twin peaks show, even though that might be silly.

i dropped my backpack on a wooden bench, but then decided it's better to "sing" standing upwards (easier to breathe in and out then, eh?).

at first, i waited until bikes or moms passed by, did my vocal takes, and interrupted myself when someone came nearby, and continued later. but then i again thought, fudge, if i can make a fool out of myself in public, i can go all the way, either way. and just did my thing, without further ado.

i should also add that this was not some harmonic singing type stuff, but some odd vocals in an odd way, "dadaist" and repetitive, so i was standing there, next to the road, on the grass, near the edge, for like 30 minutes (with multi takes and interruptions), shouting the same gibberish phrases into my phone over and over again.
i started to get really into it, jumped up and down, let my arms swing around while recording...

and this *might* have been weird, but, let's be realistic, i hardly think anyone even noticed or cared what i did.

if you do bizarre stuff in public, there is always the feel as if all eyes are on you, but the rational answer is that most people will just think "who cares - i ve seen weirder shit".

but it was a fun experience, "i felt one with nature", also going into "fool mode" can feel refreshing... i highly recommend it, and plan to do it again.

i should take care to optimize my approach though, as a lot of the vocals sounded quite "muddy", i had to delete a lot of them (good that i did double takes!), there were a lot of windy noises... but for this "weird" track, this was perfect.

Tracks: Gabber Cooking https://soundcloud.com/low-entropy/gabber-cooking
Video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IPA8rU8ItcM
The World is Doomed let's Dance https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/bonus-track-low-entropy-the-world-is-doomed-lets-dance (another track with wind recording)

https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/

Low Entropy's production diary: My totally insane year of the triple snake goddess hardcore techno titan drum

Right after the end of 2025, after christmas and during new year, i began to feel sick, the condition got worse, in the weeks that followed.
Eventually i needed to go to the hospital in march, had surgery, doctors said i was on the door to death already, yet they released me after 3 days again, so maybe it was not *that* bad, i don't know.
i still need to live with the implications of this, am not back to normal, but i am mostly recovered and the doctors say i am, more or less, "fine", by now.

This is all very disturbing and bad, but I don't want to trouble you with my health tales. Instead i want to talk about music production, and there is a story related to this story, that is even more insane, and even *i* have trouble understanding it.

So, as you see, I went ill after christmas, into the new year... and even in january i already had minor fits of hallucinating... nothing too bad, nothing out of control. for example, little white people from another dimension, having a chat with me about me and my life.
This is not too unusual for me when i am seriously ill. and i think its something that happens to a lot of people, when they have a fever or are in bed, with bad health.

an example, when i had corona, i had visions of the end of the world, of death as a female personification walking toward me in the snow, and touching me, and worse, for days on.

let's get back to january. one of the weirdest visions was that i repeatedly saw three snakes, in the room i was in.
large snakes, maybe 2-3 meters each, or longer, they twirled and flew around the room, sometimes towards me, touching me, and breathing fire on me.

i don't know, this "hallucination" appeared 6-7 times, or maybe even more often.

out of curiosity, i began to ask the "snake thing" about its name. at first, the snakes seemed to utter complete silence, as the answer, even though they opened their mouths.
but i kept asking, and i heard something that sounded like a strange, hoarse whisper.

i felt i was making progress, so i kept asking, and the snake answer got louder each time.
eventually, i could hear what the sound was.

it sounded very much like a techno bassdrum, but epic, mindblowing... colossal, almost infernal.
there was a strange metallic sound to it, and reverberation, and it was very noisy (that's why i first thought it sounded like hissing when it was more silent, i guess).

i felt enchanted and overpowered by it, i never heard something so powerful before! it was titanic, maybe that's the right word for it. like it came from the depths of the earth, or the depths of the cosmos.

after that, i made a vow to attempt to recreate the sound i heard, that was given to me, by this triple snake vision.

i immediately went into production, and created a 27:27 minute piece with a drum sound, that felt similar.
and then a few weeks later, i created 160 drum samples, and tried to fit them to the vision of that sound.

i later did more productions, and i also used my own samples in my own tracks, and essentially, there are countless of tracks and albums now, based on these weird "titan drums".

my entire year of music and production, was changed, and ruled by this weird event!

i still don't know what was going on here, or if it's even a sensible and rational thing to do, to create something that is somehow tied to sickness, too.

but on the other hand, other artists did great novels, movies, and music, out of "dark" things like misery, war, death and, yes, sickness, too, so i guess it's alright. and these drums are really kicking! in my opinion.

and maybe this production progress would have happened without illness too, and it's just a strange coincidence.

also, i dont feel my drum samples really did 100% justice to the sound i heard, as it felt even more powerful and otherwordly. but they do go in that direction!

Sounds:

NucleusProject Part 1 - Les Champs Métalliques https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/nucleusproject-part-1-les-champs-m-talliques (the first production)
160 royalty free unusual drum samples https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/160-royalty-free-unusual-drum-samples (the sample pack)
Orion Transfer https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/orion-transfer one of the albums i created with the drum

77 genuine speedcore drum samples from the 1990s

hi there,
here is a new sample pack with drums and other sounds. these samples are free to download, and royalty free.

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/77-genuine-speedcore-drum-samples-from-the-1990s

background:

i've been an electronic musician since ages... and since the 90s, at least.
back then my main style was gabber, speedcore, breakcore... the "harder edge" of techno if you want... and especially the faster one!
my music got very popular, i played my tunes in fronts of 1000s of people, at countless clubs, in the open, under railway bridges, at squats, i dropped 800 bpm tunes at places like tresor in berlin...

and my music was put on vinyl, 1000s of copies per release...

i am telling this not to boost my ego, but to show that these were drums that were actually used in the 90s and the years later, too, that got played out. are "club tested and crowd approved", so to say. not some faux reconstruction of an era that has gone by!

these drums are taken from my actual tracks from "back in the day". some of these tracks (and drums) were created using software like impulse tracker, buzz tracker, cool edit pro, soundforge, native instrument's generator... the real deal! MS-DOS, win 3.11, then windows 98 (yeah i skipped 95).

the style of the drums is hardcore, of course, but i am sure they can be used for everything, when done right.

apart from the drums, there is synths, pads, percussion, noise, fx, and other weird stuff.
credits

77 genuine hardcore, techno, and speedcore drum samples and sounds from the 1990s

credits:

all drums and sounds created by me, low entropy.

license:

feel free to use these samples for any public, private, intimate, or commercial purpose.
would be *very* cool if you credit me, but it's not strictly necessary.

also check my other packs:

https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/2026/03/free-drum-sample-packs.html

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: The trick

The secret trick to being a good producer is the following:

Try to make every track like it's a throwaway session on a bored monday that you will discard in the garbage afterwards, *and* as if it's a production where you need to come up with the correct sequences of tones and beats to prevent the planetary apocalypse and the end of all things, there is noone else left or around to do this job, time is running out, and you only have 5 minutes left, and if you fail, it's... "la fin", like the French say.



if you can combine both of these opposite, polar mindsets or fantasies, at the same time, and channel that in your music... well, then i think the result will be exceedingly good!

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/post-acid
https://rotjecore.bandcamp.com/track/horrortrax060-low-entropy-thy-will-be-done-apocalyptic-mix

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Creating a remix of Filth for a Riot Radio

One day, in 2023, I had a most nice surprise. RIOT Radio Records reached out to me. They said they loved me (he he) and wanted me to do a DJ set for their show, and also a remix for their label.
It happened to be a remix of Matthias Koch's track "scream for me" which ended up on the "Filth" EP.

They asked it to be in "Doomcore" style, and as riot radio was more of a techno thang, I reined in my hardcore a bit and refrained from too much of speedcore or other strange influences.

so... where was I? Ah yes, the set was more "technoid" than usual for me too.
and when i checked the track that i was due to remix i was in for a shock: this was not the mellow techno anymore i knew from the past. in fact it sounded more hardcore and screaming than a lot of gabber stuff i knew!

So what could i do to it?
Plus it had a lot of sounds and channels, which made remixing it a quite complex task.
So I conceived this idea: i load some of the stems into my daw, add my own beats and noise and ruckus, and, yeah, hope that something interesting comes out from that.

And I still live jammed it! So there was this production curiosity:
I built my own, multi channel track as a remix of the original. But while live recording it, the entirety of the original track was always playing in the background of it! yet I only switched on and off some of the channels. So sometimes this or that channel was playing, some of my own channels were playing, and some original ones, then everything changed... yeah,quite the chaos.

And I think the output sounds like chaos too, which was what I had intended.

I liked to hear the full on noize of the track, but my label guy demanded "Doomcore".
So I had the following idea: i followed the tradition of doomcore tracks like "gates of heaven" by dr macabre, "in the midnight hour" my superpower. the doomcore pads and sounds and melodies come in over the length of a track, one at a time. so there is a build up until everything is swallowed by the - doom.

I thought this was very clever, but the label said: "the doomcore is really only in the last 1/3 of the track"
so much for that!

we tried ways to fix this, but as my track was live jammed, one take, i could not do much about it anymore.
In the end we more or less put it out this way.

Went on a nice picture vinyl, with other tracks by Matthias, and a few other remixes. there is also a digital version, and a shopping bag (!) with the picture from the vinyl.
the picture shows "a woman grabbing onto her chest", to describe it in modest words, which, i guess, should symbolize the "filth" of the tracks.
it does not look too dirty, but it's good to turn some people heads when i walk around with my filth shopping bag.

got some good feedback on the track, and it ended up being playing out by some DJs.

Digital and Vinyl version:
https://riotradiorecords.bandcamp.com/album/filth

HCBXCast Vol 86 - Low Entropy - 19th September 2026

Dogs and itches! I have some grrreat news!
I will return to HCBX once more.

With a 1 hour set on the 19th of september, or 19.09... because the 909 is a classic, it seems!

What to expect? Well, here is the official promo text.
Just let me tell you, it's gonna be rrrrough!

"HCBXCast 86 sees the return of one of the channel's longest-standing collaborators and an absolute hardcore techno legend, Low Entropy. LE has been a part of the HCBX channel for years now, so it was only right to get him back on the show. This time we're getting stuck into the darker, harder and more fucking mental side of the Low Entropy sound. Terror, hardcore, techno and all manner of twisted electronic madness, brought together in one proper Low Entropy session. HCBXCast 86. Low Entropy. No messing about."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSsporrw-G0

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: What's in a name?

Low Entropy Diary: What's in a name?

Some info and the background story how I ended up with my name... why I chose "low entropy" as the producer alias.

When I started, there was this weird attitude in the German hardcore (speedcore) scene, and probably elsewhere, too.
Trying to appear ultra evil, aggressive, "edge-y"... so artist names were usually horror / violence related too, i guess dj skull crunch or dj rip-your-guts-out would have fit there...

After reading a feature in the german Spex magazine, I got inspired to do the opposite, to pick a name with the least "street cred" or hardness possible (as I saw it).
i was (or still am) also a science nerd at that time. so i chose a concept from science and physics, entropy. the word was really unknown in germany, and i think it's only recently that there is a hype about entropy on the internet (even UK pop band muse had an entropy-themed album by now)

there are very few totally strict laws in the world of physics (even nuclear particles can be transmuted, and most other "laws" can be circumvented in some way), and one of these laws happen to be the idea that the universe favors entropy, and it is impossible to go against that.

so I chose the opposite of entropy, which is "low entropy". as an act of rebellion, and to go against the cosmic laws, metaphorically speaking.

and then, a few years later, nerd-y names suddenly became commonplace in the breakcore scene, and were everywhere. this made me wish to go back in time, and change my name to "dj skull crunch" after all! but i guess hindsight is 20/20, and the breakcore hype is mellowed down again.

i also thought about calling myself "phuture kid" at first, because i liked pcp and their whole "phuture" concept.
but nowadays i am glad that i did not do that! because i think that name might not have aged so well...

and another thing that was very (or ver-Y) important to me was to have an "Y" in my name. I always liked that letter, and I am super interested in strange names or odd letter concepts... like Zang Tumb Tuum (the record label of Frankie goes to Hollywood), Zoth Omnog (Talla 2XLC's industrial EBM label), zyx music (music supercompany, that also released a lot of gabber and speedcore stuff, apart from their industrial disco, goth, or polka compilations), ziggy stardust (david bowie supposedly "took" the first name of his berlin room mate iggy pop, then slapped an extra "z" on top of it to make it appear more cool), zaxxon (really cool early arcade game), exxos (french game company, did purple saturn day and the chamber of the sci-mutant priestess).
seems there are a lot of "z"s and "x"s in these surreal names. so maybe it was the right time to choose an "Y", too :-)

New Doomcore vinyl

You might have checked and listened to the new Darklords 2 compilation by Demonic Wavs already.
But did you know it is also a triple vinyl release?
I guess that makes it the biggest Doomcore Techno vinyl album ever!

Go check it here:

https://elasticstage.com/doomsday/releases/darklords-2-pt1-album
https://elasticstage.com/doomsday/releases/darklords-2-pt2-album
https://elasticstage.com/doomsday/releases/darklords-2-pt3-album

and the digital version

https://demonicwavs.bandcamp.com/album/darklords-2

aaand.. you can also buy it on usb drive!

Threefold Low Entropy interviews

Hi there!
Do you want to get to know me & my music better?
In the last months, there has been three more or less extensive interviews with me about my music production and other things.

First one was for HCBX, on the occasion of a mix by me that was broadcasted on HCBX.

https://hcbxcast.blogspot.com/2024/11/interview-low-entropy.html

I guess it has been the most extensive and "serious" one.

The next one was by Origin of Styx, on the occasion of my appearance of his radio show:

https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/2026/01/le-on-oos-stygian-show.html

This is a bit more fun and weird ;-)

https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/2026/08/low-entropy-busy-bio.html

This one happened because the Busy Action show asked me to write a longer bio or info blurb about what I do.
I guess it is a kind of "interview with myself" in some way (how about that, Billy Idol ? :-)

I'll also let you in on some production secrets in these interviews, and some cring-y or weird stories of my past.

Cheers!
-LE

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: The Yellow Dog Lights Up At Night, or: Hamburg Thrift

I like to haunt at thrift stores and 1-euro stores, because you never know what you can find there, and despite the items being usually cheap, they are sometimes, if you are lucky, not of lesser quality; and actually quite useful.
So, some years ago, I was at some Hamburg euro type thing, and noticed a dog light, or rather... uhm... a dog-themed light source. I guess it was supposed to be some kind of (novelty) lamp, but it was a light source for a regular home, yet shaped like one of these typical neon signs... you know, neon glowing scissor signs for hair (or other?) stylists, glowing hammers for mechanics (okay maybe i made this one up). but this one was shaped like a dog.
and even though it looked and was stylized like a neon sign, it was regular led or whatever they do these days.

and, you might guess why i bought it, because i thought it was a fun item to have, in relation to the hardcore techno overdogs magazine.
but, i am lazy, and i buy a lot of stuff, and am busy with a lot of things, and with projects. so i put it somewhere in some room, and did not pay attention to it.
fast forward some time, i think about two years... and a light bulb blew up in another room, i moved a light from the producer room as a temporary substitute. which meant my producing room was now short of one light.
i remembered the dog, unpacked the box, the thing looked really cool and cute, after all!
turned out it was usb powered, so i plugged it into the desktop computer i use for producing, and, voila, the faux neon dog lit up in glorious yellow light! which was a surprise, i thought the light would be more white-ish.

because it is connected to the usb plug, this means that everytime i do producing beyond daytime, the yellow dog lights up at night!

part 2

why i do i write this? well, to me, it's not a quirk, or a novelty, or some silly thing. when i do producing at night, this means that i can see the blue-ish grey-ish darkened night sky of Hamburg. Hamburg has been called "the city where the rain never ends", but i also like to call it "The Moonless City". Because of the rainy or semi-rainy weather, the sky is often overcast at night. so: you can't see the moon, even when it's up. it appears as if hamburg lacked a moon!

so it means i am sitting in my production room, i see through the window, there is darkness outside, i can see the lights of the high rises, the blinking lights of the planes, the electricity pylons, or, to be more precise, i can't actually see the pylons, but only the bright red air traffic warning lights that are attached to them, as if they were reddened eyes suspended in the sky. i can even see the stars, on a lucky day.
i can see some trees slowly swinging in the currents of the wind. i can see the occasional reveler on the street, or the occasional car drive by; as if it was not steered by humans to very human destinations, but as if they would lift up any moment, turn into a spacecraft, disappear into the night sky as another bright dot, before heading straight to alpha centauri.

i hear the urban hum in the background, the jet engines from time to time, the traffic noise, sometimes a fight or dispute on the street, sometimes the sirens of police cars, the distant sound of trains. and for some reason, there also seems to be construction noise in some way, even at night.

and now, to this whole mood, now the production room is filled with warm glowing, neither too bright neither too dark, orange-yellow light. out of a led thing shaped like a faux dog.

and yeah, i think you know what i want to express here. this generates a certain mood, a setting, ambience, a certain environment. it's a home studio, but the environment is not just the room or the sound characteristics.
it is also how the room feels, even when the room is expanded to the outside world. or mixed up with it.

and the yellow light adds to it, in this case.

part 3

and i don't think that's crazy, because i know many producers who, at one point, made the decision to create a kind of home studio. and they always had quirks like that. like, someone wanted to have only white colored things in their production room. another has vintage scifi movie poster on their walls. or producers keep all kind of totems and strange items in their production room, such as stuff from their childhood, or stuff that reminds them of a cool party, and much more.
some might even keep a piece of semi-defunct gear they never did part with. as some kind of technological good luck charm.

and if you ask these producers, they all will swear to you that *this is important*: that how the room they are making music in looks like, feels like, appears like, *has* an effect on production. including the choice or lack of lighting. which brings us back to the yellow dog light, woof woof!

and, the message of all this is, that if you are gonna sit down and produce music, keep in mind, that the environment, how you set up your production environment, might actually be important, too!

note: no AI has been used when writing this text.

related tracks:

topp dogg - the hardcore techno overdogs anthem part II https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/topp-dogg-black-dog-edit
low entropy - future city skyline https://encountersrecords.bandcamp.com/album/future-city-skyline
low entropy - golden galaxy https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/2019-golden-galaxy

Hardcore against AFD (Techno Remix)

Low Entropy · Hardcore Against AFD (Techno Remix)

Low Entropy - Hardcore against AFD (Techno Remix)

In light of the upcoming election... I created a new remix of this track by me.
It's weird when I think about this track, and realize it is a track I made in 2017 already.
A year when the AFD was dangerously close to gaining power, too. One would have thought that this problem would have been finished by now, right?
But, alas, it seems to be a never ending struggle.
So, 9 years later, 2017 to 2026, here is an updated version of the track.

Many brilliant and courageous people held a lot of speeches about this issue, campaigns, events... and as an add-on, now here is also a very aggressive techno track, to feed your anger.

Against fascism, against Racism, against misogyny, against queerphobia, against classism, against oppression.
And against anything that even remotely feels or looks to be "right-wing".

Let's put fascism back into the trashcan of history, once more.

https://soundcloud.com/low-entropy/hardcore-against-afd-techno

Æon Quest

The year turns, and so does the project nucleus.
The September entry is an epic quest, an Æon Quest.
Follow the hard techno kickdrum and outer space acid line and voice of the choir, as we pass from aeon to aeon, from the aeon of love to the aeon of redemption. Will Sophia finally find her way, as she navigates the labyrinth of space and time?

https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/on-quest-the-nucleus-project-september

Find more info about the project nucleus here: https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/2026/08/updates-on-nucleus-project.html



Full Release Info:

Æon Quest (The Nucleus Project: September)

1. 1st Æon (Love) 04:47
2. 2nd Æon (Seed) 06:19
3. 3rd Æon (Rise) 03:47
4. 4th Æon (Zenith) 06:14
5. 5th Æon (Temporarily Lost) 03:06
6. 6th Æon (Redemption) 03:13

Music by Low Entropy
Original artwork by Pierre Lunaire

Low Entropy Busy Bio

A few weeks (months) ago, Busy Action reached out to me, to write a short blurb about me & my music, as a (belated) add-on to a mix set release I did for Busy Action back in the first month of 2025.
Well, as you know me, the text got a bit longer, and I now feel it is almost like a complete short bio of my own music, or maybe, a "busy bio"

TOXIC SICKNESS RADIO OFFICIAL · LOW ENTROPY / BUSY ACTION SHOW ON TOXIC SICKNESS / JANUARY / 2025

https://soundcloud.com/toxic-sickness/lowentropy-busy-action-show-january-2025

If you want to learn more about me & my music, feel free to also read this interview I did with DJ Asylum and HCBX a year ago: https://hcbxcast.blogspot.com/2024/11/interview-low-entropy.html

or this one I did with OOS earlier this year (2026)
https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/2026/01/le-on-oos-stygian-show.html

And here it goes:

I was born 16.11.1980 in Hamburg, Germany.
Got into the whole techno madness thing during the 90s.
Apart from Hardcore & Gabber, I was always interested in, and producing other styles of music too, like dark ambient, krautrock, breakcore, chip sounds, contemporary classical....

some of the stuff i did:

-I had my first vinyl releases in the late 90s and early 2000s, on labels like Blut, Praxis, Black Monolith, or Widerstand.
-i ran a hamburg-wide radio show (real radio, not online) called "hamburg hardcore radio". plenty of guest DJs showed up and label specials were aired.
-played countless of gigs, all over germany, in the netherlands, at tresor, at parades...

-produced over 300 releases for free and commercial labels. from drone and minimal techno, industrial doomcore and hard acid, to speedcore and noise.
-running a magazine called "the hardcore overdogs" that focuses on weird hardcore releases and the electronic music scene in general. with DJ interviews, video features, and much more.

-running three digital labels: doomcore records, slowcore records, and omnicore records

doomcore records is for dark hardcore and techno, slowcore records is for music below 130 bpm, and omnicore records is for everything.
the labels have more than 300 releases in total, too.

-being part of The Gabber Elders, a global team made up of a few hardcore DJs and producers of the 90s

apart from music, i am also a "diy-taught music journalist", and have been writing for paper and online magazines since the 90s.
i also wrote several e-books about hardcore techno, the culture, strange / obscure labels.
or about other topics. like anarchism, philosophy, or poetry.

i believe that music and art has the power to change the entire world.

-i also like to do video art or visuals, or find ways to shoot movies on a soapbox budget.

some things that others might consider to be merits:

i, my labels, or my music have been featured in most of the major music magazines around the world.
the stuff i write for the hardcore overdogs and other features have been read by several million people.
also my music has been listened to by a million people or more.
and it keeps getting played by djs around the world at huge or small parties.

you might also want to check my blog: https://lowentropyproducer.blogspot.com/

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Eleven Uprisings and a digital Revolution

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Eleven Uprisings and a digital Revolution

2014 was the year everything changed for me - again. Also in terms of music and producing. It was the year I really "broke through", or rather, I broke out of the "underground cage", if you will. My music was no longer just listened to by hardened speedcore and breakcore freaks, or hardened social science students (hello South London scene!)... well, not that there would be anything wrong with that demographic. But now, Techno DJs played my stuff too, my tunes got played at the big rave festivals, ah well. I also wrote some e-books about Hardcore and Techno that became quite popular. It was a sweet year and time.

Before that, I was on a grim, dark, gloomy and doomy path. In a most literal sense, as I was producing Doomcore and Dark Hardcore. Very brooding, and also very minimalistic. My Doomcore tracks usually had just 4-5 tracks, sometimes even just 3 tracks. Or 2. Or sometimes even just one! These were filled with doomed synths and drums, that looped on and on and on...

Either way, as I told you, 2014 was more optimistic again, and also the time my tracks expanded again. I did lots of very experimental stuff, and really went into overload with production. I dropped the Hardcore, well, not really, but my tracks were not as Hardcore anymore, more like... regular Techno or electronic music. Still not as corny, though!

But... as the year went on... as summer passed by... as the cold crept back in... the doom returned, and the hardcore bass, and the need plus the desire to do some ecstasy filled rave dance dark hardcore tunes... again. "ecstasy", as in dancing oneself into ecstasy. not by using substances, of course.

Thus I returned to my "uprising" concept of tracks. I did a series of tracks called Urban Uprising, then Second and Third Uprising, at a much earlier date. I think I wrote some producer diary (diaries) about these already.
So, now I returned, and I had the eighth uprising, ninth, ten, eleven, and even a final uprising.
As for the framework, read the other diary (diaries). But let's just say that at the root there is Techno, but also in a hardcore treatment, and with a lot of ideas taken from... acid.

I really went into overload with the new uprising tracks... I think eleventh uprising had 22 tracks or channels running at the same time. Maybe it was 27.
The thing is, I always hated "producer flex" tracks like this. I felt that producers just filled their tracks with... multi tracks, in order to show off, or because they thought this was professional. And often the tracks actually sounded crowded because of this, or were getting nowhere.

In order to mitigate this problem, Eleven Uprising has a lot of multi tracked sequences... *but* the channels and tracks were grouped and linked with each other.
For example, there is only one, looped chord progression, or "melody", running throughout the entire track. But there are plenty of other melodies that come and go, or pile on top of each other. Yet each of them is a derivate, transformation, or metamorphosis of the underlying melody. Even the FX, the acidline, and maybe, in an extended sense, the drum and percussion, are tied to, and go back to, this one, main melody.
So, when a wild arpeggio comes in, it is exactly the same chord progression, in disguise. Or when rave bleeps come in, they at least stay in harmony with the chords.

This way, I think, everything still sounds... somewhat "clean" despite the overly tracked and multi channel... thing!
In fact, listening back, maybe I should have used some elements that clashed with this harmony... in order to make it sound less tidy!

Either way, the tracks went onto a CD release, released by Viral Conspiracy Records.
This was only the second time I had a CD release, as compared to the vinyl releases I did before.
But this one felt more like a "whole", as the tracks are linked by the themes I mentioned above. While the first album (Hardcore by Design) was more like... a compiled release of different tracks I did.


I was very happy about this release, and thought "wow, my second CD, now I really made it". I thought it would make quite the impact.
But, in the time and years that followed, it felt as I was getting a quite ... meagre response to the album. Ah well, stuff like that could happen, right?

But then, even much later, and many years later, I learned that the release really had reached lots and lots of people, and that DJs played the tunes at big parties, and everything was quite... "popular". I just did not know it, because, yeah, sometimes the "feedback" does not arrive, in this digital age.

Maybe something that newer producers should keep in mind, that your tunes might actually reach a lot of people, and you just do not notice or realise it.

Oh, I said the doom crept back in, right? So, this track has almost "smiley rave" style pads, heavenly choirs, a party or festival mood. But there are also the hardcore drums, and the caustic acid, and lots of distortion and screeches towards the end.

Eleventh Uprising https://viralconspiracyrecords.bandcamp.com/track/eleventh-uprising
Revolution https://viralconspiracyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/low-entropy-revolution
Urban Uprising https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/reminiscence-urban-uprising-emerald-planet

DJ Low Entropy - Happy Hardcore Trance and Gabber Mix

This mix kick starts a new series! The Gabber Elders focus on a more "mainstream" genre of Hardcore and Techno: Happy Hardcore and Rave! With a series of 3 or 4 mixes.
The 1990s were an era of squeaky (clean) vocals, rave organs, lunatic sawtooth arpeggios, mad hat MCs, sociology students that lend their studio voices to Hardcore productions for a dollar and a dime...
Fast Gabba beats, breakbeats, angelic choirs, and little devils on the cover artworks.
Yes, there was a lot of corny commercial trash in that era, but there were also some real gems, with less cheese, more refined... gems that few people know so far... and you know what? We will broadcast both!

Can you still dig it? So, Let's get back to that era.

This first mix is by Low Entropy, mixes by the other Gabber Elders will be broadcasted soonish!

Styles: Happy Hardcore, Rave, Gabber, Hard Trance, Acid Trance, Ravecore

and the tracklisting:

1. Sunbeam - Arms of Heaven (Extended Mix)
2. Komakino - Outface
3. DJ Paul Elstak - Life is Like a Dance
4. Sequential One - Back to Unity Pt. 2
5. Search & Destroy - Madonna
6. C.O.R. feat. Mike Nova - Children of The Revolution
7. Dune - Are You Ready to Fly
8. Marusha - It Takes Me Away
9. Party Animals - Have You Ever Been Mellow (Tekno Mafia Mix)
10. DJ Jorge & Rico - Started With A Bass
11. Raver's Nature - N-Sonic Dreams
12. DJ Isaac - Bad Dreams
13. Westbam - Celebration Generation (Raver's Nature Remix)
14. Happymen - Love Is You (The Stunned Guys Mix)
15. RMB - There's Love
16. Lords Of The Underworld - Making Moves
17. Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo - Together In Wonderland (Live At The Toilet Mix)
18. DJ Hooligan - Love Time
19. Cyclo S9 Feat. Search And Destroy - M.U.S.I.C
20. Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo - Your Smile (Happy Hardcore Edit)
21. Sunbeam - Arms of Heaven (Single Mix)

I am an underground music producer and journalist for over 30 years, and in my opinion, there is only one thing that decides whether an artist is "successful" or not

Hi,
I've been around for a long time, I've been around in many different scenes, I wrote about even more scenes and their inhabitants, i ran 3 labels, multiple radio shows ("real" radio, not on the internet), i wrote for famous publications, also for not so famous publications...
i produced with some very famous producers, or interviewed them, or booked them for my parties
indirectly i ve known even more famous ones, like, i have had friends who knew pop stars in the very mainstream music world... (and with "friends" i don't mean vague acquaintance, But friends to the point they worked the door at some of the parties of our "crew").

but this does not matter, i just want to give some background, because, as you can see, i've been around a lot, and bent over many corners... talked to artists of all walks, or to artists on their path to many, many different destinations (destinations like the stars, or the gutter).

and, in my opinion, there is only one, and yes, only one thing that decides whether an artist finds success or not.
and with success, i mean success in the most broad sense.
could be success in the sense of money and fame. or success, because they were able to fulfill their dream.
and that could indeed be a dream that does not necessarily involve lots of money and fame - like being the founder of a wholly new genre (pioneers rarely get paid). or becoming resident DJ at a famous club location.
or becoming the political voice for those who need to be heard in this world.
and every kind of shade between these three (or maybe all these together, even!).

and what is this thing?
there is group a), the group of artists that actually *do* something, that follow through with their plans and ideas and schemes and visions and grand or not so grand thoughts...
and group b), people who don't. who always have excuses, maybe even good excuses, to give up, or do something different, or to stay silent, or passive.

i met so many people, that were great artists, that had the best ideas ever, that already had demos ready for the most amazing albums. but that had second thoughts, that had doubts, that were afraid, afraid what other people could think, maybe they were afraid that they get mocked, or noone would like their stuff...
so they never released it, they never really showed it to the outside world, they kept it to themselves, or they only reluctantly went forward, with a minor release, they did not really push it...
so the world turned, time went on, the world forgot them, but they could have been amongst the greatest and best known artists ever... if they only had had the courage, to spit everything out to the world!

or maybe it wasn't even the "public response" they were afraid of, but had inner doubts, thought that their ideas were too zany, too out there, too strange, too unfinished, and hell, maybe even too dark and fiery (can happen to the best of us).
and did not push forward, and got forgotten.

while, on the other hand, i met total idiots, who had zero talent in no parts of their bodies, that did stupid music. but that somehow had the courage, talked to everyone about their music, even to those that did not care, pushed their releases into every place, and boom, they went famous, even though they did not deserve it by all sensible accounts!

and that is the way the world runs.

if you look at the biographies of well known, or cool underground artists (or both), you will see that almost all of them, with little exception, at one point of their path, or at several, hit a wall of doubt or a major crisis, and they nearly broke down, but then made the decision... to push through!

so why wouldn't you? why don't you?

and this brings us to the third point. there are actually good reasons to stop. financial reasons, or social reasons. really dedicating yourself to the art can bankrupt you, or you need to move up up and away, to a far away city, in a nation where the people do not even speak the languages you know...
and you could come to the point that, *if* you fail, you truly end up in the gutter, or at least get financially "gutted". and your life is in ruins and shambles!

what to do in such a situation, or in the other cases?

well, if you really lack the courage to go "all in", there is still one thing you can do:
find a way to go ahead with your art without putting yourself at the risk of a crisis.
for example, keep a daytime job, and do music or art during the rest of the time.
don't move away yet, but spread your art online first (there is a risk in being purely online, though).
*but* you need to be honest or true about your art. and not mellow it down to please others, or the critics.
and if you are socially and financially in a relatively safe position, it should not be that hard to put out art that is exactly like you envision it, but might enrage or go over the head of the rest of people.

yes, it should not be that hard. but believe me, i met so many people, that were brilliant artists, that stopped, but not because they thought everything could go wrong and that they end up homeless and moneyless as burned out artists somewhere... but really just because they feared to get ridiculed by others, or that their own music would leave others cold... can you believe that!
but it happens
so, please, don't do that.

don't leave the world to the idiots who have the "courage" to spread art to all places. a few smart, nice, and brilliant people should be allowed to spread their art, too, right?


so here is one, additional thing:
i know all of this can be very hard, so i will give you one imaginary token or item. keep it in mind.
when you are an artist (who does art that is bold and different), and hit a severe crisis with your art, you can use this token by thinking of it. and it will allow you to walk on, and keep working, despite the crisis and the problems.
and if everything falls to pieces despite all of this, there is noone else to blame but me, because i gave you that token.
is that a deal?

i know i (possibly) load quite the responsibility and blame on me this way, but i trust so much in the concept i wrote about above, that i am willing to... take the risk!

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Field Recordings and animal noise in Hardcore Techno sounds

Low Entropy · Techno Sorcerer (111 BPM, with self-made field recording of an owl)

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Field Recordings and animal noise in Hardcore Techno sounds

Teknoaidi, or Teknojita (I think he calls himself that now) is a guy from the scandinavian speedcore scene that I know since quite some years. I don't remember the exact details, but many years ago, he issued a call to get away from sampling and all that modern tech, and base techno more on self created sounds, at best, self-recorded and field recordings. to get away from our hypertech civilization and become more "shamanic" again, if i remember correctly.

i did not like this idea at all, i must admit. i love my digital sounds, my samples... and you know, field recordings usually have a lot of noise, unwanted sounds, they are unplanned, chaotic, feral, magic... sorry, got carried away for a moment!
i thought these would clash with my very cerebral, ordered, and "logic" approach to music that i use in a lot of my own tracks.

but over the years, i still did experiment with music, and was looking for new sounds that I could add to my tracks. it's hard to always come up with new things, you know, even if you have lots of digital tools and tech and stuff!

then i realized that one thing would be new indeed: to go away from pure technology... and finally do these field recordings!

i felt that i did not have the right tech or knowledge to do my own stuff right away, so i checked if there are some public domain, free to use field recordings on the internet, and yeah, there were.

so i started to do hardcore and techno tracks with sounds pulled from the real world, and not pulled from the (soft) synths!

i guess the first thing i used was the recording of a "marine pile driver". this was after i pedaled on my bike through the city of hamburg, where i live, and such a pile driver in action nearly blew my left ear off! ultra impressive and heavy sound.

a pile driver is mechanic and dead, how about using the sounds of the living. so i did stuff with whale recordings, wolf packs howling... also a thunder storm.

but yeah, taking sounds that are already recorded is... it's not quite as feral and magic yet, right?

so i decided to do my own recordings. thunder storms and howling winds was the most easy thing to do. then i made an entire hardcore track based on the recording of an icy lake getting hit by a stick again and again. (recorded during winter time, of course). i also recorded an air raid / flood water / disaster siren that went off in the entire city by accident one time. i have not used that sound yet.

and now i arrived at a special treat, or pun intended, it's really a hoot!
i managed to record an owl at the city edge of hamburg during the night. i don't know if i have the right to feel it, but i feel proud about this, because i think a big city owl is a rare thing to record. i mean, there are many owl recordings, but not many from inside a metropolis, right? plus even if there is an owl in the city, it's usually very hard to record it, as the city noises (trains, police sirens, traffic, people partying or arguing) bleed everything out.

so i guess i got really lucky with that one. the day after the night of the recording i immediately made a heavy 10 minute track to it, and here it is.

Big City Owl: Techno Sorcerer: https://soundcloud.com/low-entropy/owl-entropy-techno-sorcerer
Pile Driver: https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/track/the-hamburg-harbor-slowcore-piledriver-experience-30-bpm
Whale Song: https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/frequency-whales
Wolf Pack: Hakken with Wolves https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/hakken-with-wolves-wulf-pack
Iced Lake: https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/iced-drums
Radio Static: https://lowentropy.bandcamp.com/album/everything-that-has-been-taken-can-be-given-back-the-nucleus-project-juone
Thunderstorm: The World is Doomed let's Dance https://doomcorerecords.bandcamp.com/track/bonus-track-low-entropy-the-world-is-doomed-lets-dance

Low Entropy's Producer Diary: Drum tests and Tierra del Fuego

Production - well, the entire world of music - often works in bizarre and "labyrinthine" ways, and usually, the more bizarre or unusual the path, the better the result.

So my story and the story of "Tierra del Fuego" goes like this.
After doing many years of producing, and getting good feedback (and fame) on my music, I decided to do a sample pack with some of the drums I created over the years, also some new ones. And more drum sample packs followed.



So, one day, when I worked on a new track, I felt kinda lazy and... just loaded up one of the drums from my own sample pack, instead of creating something fancy new.
The track sounded alright either way. So I kept using my sample packs as the drum sample source for my productions... of course not for every track.

In the end I thought: why not expand on this? If I want to create good drums, not just for sample packs, also for production... it would make sense to "try" them out, kinda like prototypes that get a prototype testflight... and the "experience" that I can collect, I can feedback into the drum creation... so I almost entered my own field of techno, hardcore drum research... diy scientist, hah!



So I created a lot of tracks with the drums, not just prototypes of course, but "full-size" tracks.

Most of these have many other components too, melodies, vocals, synths... everything.
But with Tierra del Fuego I wanted to create a track that was a drum run from the beginning to the end of the track.
In the end, it didn't exactly work out like that, I added other ideas too, everything became more complicated than I thought...

But yeah, in a nutshell, this is the story of Tierra del Fuego (and some other tracks I produced.)