back in the early days of the "breakcore scene", the preeminent place to discuss "dark, sick music" was the c8 mailing list. the list was full of raucous discussion and unusual characters, including many of the pioneers of breakcore and related musical styles. this was before breakcore "got big", if it could be said to be big now—back before idm labels like planet mu started releasing breakcore records, when venetian snares was just a guy with one 12" out who posted mp3s on his personal website.

two of the major players on the c8 list were the healy brothers, welshmen who made music under the name somatic responses. although their music didn't rely on the "mashed-up amen" sound that to this day dominates most "breakcore" music, somatic responses had released numerous records on several labels and were highly regarded on c8.

one of the brothers (i forget which one) mentioned onlist that he would love it if people made videos for SR's music. i'd already made a few primitive videos, and i had recently gotten a new computer with video editing capabilities (my first all-in-wonder card), so i jumped at the chance, and put together this video for the song "androstyle" from their circumflex cd, released by hymen records.



this was the first video i ever edited digitally, though as usual the sequencing is fairly random. most of the footage is again taken from scramled tv footage, except this time it was digitally captured (as opposed to the eggify video, where i pointed a video camera at the tv). i also incorporated some still image work and some footage of people dancing from some b-movie. no, i don't remember what movie it is.

incidentally, the political discussions on the c8 list were intense. the european breakcore scene is intensely political (unlike the US scene). after 9/11, the flamewars got so bad that the list admin shut it down. but the website remains, and the list was eventually replaced with a message board that still gets regular traffic.

this video, as well as a couple more of my earliest videos, is still online at the c8 video page, though my videos there are in realplayer format, so you're probably better off watching 'em on youtube. or if you're really curious, watch both versions and compare how the different codecs distort the video in different ways (the youtube video is pixellated in parts; the .rm video is jumpy). but there are other videos on the c8 video page that might be of interest, so go on and check it out.¶

an interesting history ¶