During the early prep for AuraLink we had a recording session where we sat down and argued about a bunch of hot takes on camera for the express purpose of other people debating the merits of our opinions in the comments. Those have slowly rolled out over the past 2 months (with mixed degrees of angry comments about how were just Taylor Swift haters) but one of my favourite takes from that day was when I argued that “if we all drove listening to breakbeat there would be no traffic”. Obviously that is a completely insane sentiment, as the biggest thing the place I live is known for above almost anything else is car accidents and high insurance, but there’s something about this genre and it’s long history that feels just right for being in the zone at 150 miles an hour (I say as a Canadian with zero concept of what a mile is).

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the genre. I will admit to you that my first proper exposure to outside of occasionally hearing it in passing was that Twitter account that put breakcore over random sped-up videos. But despite that, at least to me it’s a genre that feels almost like a monolith within internet music culture. Despite that its roots actually predate the internet, with the foundation of the genre being laid all the way back in the 1970s and drum breaks from funk-jazz songs being used in succession by DJs on vinyl. It’s wildly analog beginnings for a genre that would branch in so many wildly different directions and become so synonymous with digital culture, and yet that’s where it all started. These days, any random person with a splice account can sit down at 3 in the morning and decide they want to write a breakbeat song today (this is a self-critique, I have done this), but historically there was an unprecedented amount of care and tinkering put into the genres’ defining drum patterns and the rapid intricacies that make it up. It was meticulously controlled chaos sculpted from a mix of cut up samples, live recordings, and hours of tweaking. And despite the fact that there are some people (like myself) that shortcut their way into the space, that spirit is still alive today and thriving within it’s own hidden corners of the internet, and I love that. I love knowing that this niche but instantly recognizable genre has withstood the test of time the way it has and evolved as it’s gone along. It’s almost like a piece of cultural stability in its consistency, even if a small piece outside of the mainstream.

I won’t lie you, sometimes my ideas for these articles are sparked by the dumbest things. This time around it was hearing the background track to a guy playing competitive Tron in a YouTube short, but it’s the realization in that moment that sparks this kind of introspective though. Music is always more than the sum of its parts, and ultimately it’s about how it makes us feel within the context we hear it. There was something transcendent within that moment at 4am watching that YouTube short (as dumb as that sounds). It broke me out of my doom scrolling gaze and made me sit and think, both about the song I was hearing, about the game I was watching, and about how both these things have withstood the test of time from inception till now, and how that will continue for the foreseeable future. Removed from context it’s beautiful, and an analog to life. In reality is it just 4 am brain getting in too deep? Yeah that seems likely. But who cares, for once it’s that good kind of too deep where we can appreciate what we have. So let’s just take it as it is, throw on your favourite 200 Bpm mix, hop into you 1995 Acura NSX, and get lost in the passing city lights. Just this once.