Interview: Perfect Dark - Still Standing
Hardcore music is something a lot of us Goth types love, don't deny it. No matter what genre of Industrial or electronic you listen to, it's clear that hardcore always find at least some foothold in each one. Be it the drum and bass, trance, and super fast BPM influences or remixes, or the amazing mash ups the like of which Karkasarus play, there's always something very happy about mixing in to hardcore. For change we bring you a different genre than usual, gabber, a type of hardcore with its roots in 1990's Rotterdam.
In 2002, Alexander Azzi, otherwise known as the hardcore/gabber electronic act, Perfect Dark dropped a six-song EP titled Here I Stand. It was released by DJ Rob GEE who signed Perfect Dark to a record deal and helped the project break out into the aggressive hard dance scene.
After an indefinite leave and losing touch with his label, Alexander moved onto other things including a venture into the dubstep genre under the name, Drop Goblin which received notable success.
Now, 2022 marks twenty years since the release of "Here I Stand" as an EP and song. Alexander Azzi says, "I thought it would be fitting, two decades later to release a single titled "Still Standing" to mark my re-entry back into the genre of hardcore/gabber music for anyone that remembers me. I haven't truly gone anywhere and I am still standing to this day."
Interview
Q. For those unfamiliar, how would you describe your music, and where does your inspiration come from?
A. To describe my music would be to first describe the overall genre itself. A great way that I can describe Hardcore/Gabber music is Angry Electronic Dance Music. Depending on where you are in the world, you may find yourself in the eye of the storm of a mosh pit at a rave or possibly doing some crazy European style dancing known as “Hakken” dancing. That kind of dancing is a whole different type of story, so I suggest anyone wondering how to “Hakken” to do a Google or YouTube search for that.
The elements of Hardcore/Gabber is a much faster BPM tempo ranging from 160’ish to 200+ depending on the type of hard dance sub-genre you are listening to. My style sits nice at around the 185BPM tempo. Slow enough to feel the ingredients of the music and dance to without fainting from exhaustion, but fast enough to give you an aggressive adrenali