HARDCORE NATION

Saturday. Hardcore Nation at Matrix, five days after turning eighteen. There are more traditional ways to inaugurate adulthood but none I currently prefer. This was proper hardcore, the sort of night that doesn’t ask whether you’ve recently become interested in progressive techno because it simply grabs the older part of your musical brain and turns everything else off. The Viper, The Stunned Guys, hard records everywhere, people dressed for a scene rather than a night out. I love that distinction. A club crowd can look assembled. A hardcore crowd looks affiliated. Yuri came, although this is not his natural habitat in the way it is mine. He watched me during one particularly violent stretch and later said, `”You don’t dance like that at techno nights.”` Correct. Techno makes me pay attention. Hardcore makes attention unnecessary. Edo was online when I got home — because of course he was — and demanded names, tracks, everything. I told him I was exhausted. He said that wasn’t an answer.

Deathcore journalism never sleeps.

Remember me, Eclipse.