What is it about?
Gabber is a hardcore electronic dance music, typified by extreme speed and overdrive, which first emerged in early 1990s Rotterdam. We argue that industrial music and electronic noise aesthetics, plus body horror such as Hellraiser were important precedents. We use Walser’s (1993) argument that horror appeared as a counter to the rationality of the enlightenment, as a chasm appeared between accelerating financial capital and a slowing economy, with horror becoming a way to channel the resultant rage. The metal studies framework aids an understanding of the formation of gabber amongst working class youth. We trace how the avant-garde/industrial traces in its sonic DNA facilitated its adoption across the political spectrum. The result was at once ironically nihilistic and politically symptomatic. It worked as a safety valve, creating a means for its producers and followers to process the contradictions and tensions of a post-human accelerated technoculture.
Featured Image
Photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Our paper examines Gabber through the lens of two genre groups: metal and industrial/EBM. Combining our Dutch and British perspectives and knowledge of the form, we cover the topic in new ways not previously present in Anglophone writing on the subject. We also explore the sociological and cultural significance of Gabber and what followed it, tracing a serious of relatively unknown trajectories.
Perspectives
My contribution to the paper builds on my 1998 paper "Thinking about mutation: Genres in 1990s electronica", which was my first serious analysis of the emergence and rapid mutation of Gabber and related forms. I apply my detailed knowledge of gabber and of what I argue are its sonic and stylistic antecedents and parallels in forms such as industrial and EBM (electronic body music).
Alexei Monroe
Burren College of Art
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Gabber: Raising hell in technoculture1, Metal Music Studies, September 2021, Intellect,
DOI: 10.1386/mms_00057_1.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
