#youcore (review)

An eclectic, spiraling record to move your shoulders to.

If I had a dollar for the amount of times I’ve gone to a rave, I’d probably have one dollar. While I frequent 160+ bpm tracks and throttle the capabilities of my JLab JBuds LAX (found refurbished on eBay), it’s an asynchronous experience going from headphones to speakers on the dance floor. Crowds moving, swirling strobe lights, and the general atmosphere to let loose doesn’t sit well in my chud-like appreciation for the drums and beat modulation. Not to bring up the “dichotomy,” but my biggest red flag as a fan of club music is that I do not like the club. If that disqualifies my credibility then so be it. I will still tell you that #youcore is a fantastic album that should motivate you to dance.

Riding off the growing moment of Japanese club music subgenre, #jesusclub, youcore is a project from producer null. #youcore can’t be defined by one genre or style. Across it’s thirty-four minute runtime, youcore speedruns through baile funk, dubstep, nightcore, dnb, acid house, and a few others I’m mislabeling or forgetting. Each track is ready to be blasted as loud as possible as to make full use of the glossy production values.

Though the record’s cover art (by clariisapunk) and track titles would suggest an infatuation with an aestheticized vision of technological ruin, there is a structured sound that leaves no room to be nostalgic. Tracks like “drUM t00l” effortlessly pulse into a concord of drum machines backed by sirens and whistles and fantastic sample usage. “fluxTEMP” is a stampede of dub-wubs and striking stringy synths kept to a dizzying tempo by an unrelenting kick drum. “signo de admiración” and “smart GT” set a dangerous high level of dopamine with a satisfying amount of harmonic dissonance (i.e. baile funk), even punctuated by the proliferated “tum cha cha tum cha” vocal sample.

#youcore and albums like it (Fcucker’s Ö, Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer) feel like liminal checkpoints in our musical timeline. While they are repurposing familiar spaces in a way that is refreshing, it begs me to wonder where to go from here. #jesusclub seems to be endemic to Japan, and like the parent genres it spawns from (dariacore and Jersey club), it may balloon outward beyond it’s regional specificity. I want to know what is next for youcore, they are really cool. I want to sway my hands to their music. I guess the self-titled debut will be the basis for a series of compilation albums co-signed by Mad Breaks. Nonetheless, they are in for a bright futre.

Very much the 4 out of 5 record that I have been telling all my friends to listen to.

Cheers.