Although this website was initially built to serve as my design portfolio for professional purposes, I intend to populate this particular page with creative projects and interests outside of my career in UX design. This content will take the form of “words” (prose, poetry, and reading lists), “sounds” (music and playlists), and possibly “visuals” (photos and videos).
I have a crippling habit of leaving personal endeavors unfinished, but the hope is that the existence of this humble little corner on the internet will provide enough motivation for me to regularly complete and share ideas.
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January 1, 2025
In early 2024, I came across a viral Instagram reel featuring a track called “anybody can find love (except you.)” by hkmori, captioned “breakcore in a nutshell.” I immediately fell in love with the way the song introduces a piano melody (from Hikaru Utada’s Sakura Nagashi) and subsequently chops and repurposes it a moment later to establish rhythmic drive. At nineteen seconds, the angst of the piano sample is broken down into an intense frustration when a distinctly breakcore drum part is suddenly slammed into the mix.
not quite breakcore is a playlist inspired by “anybody can find love (except you.)” and a product of my desire to explore various subgenres of electronic music. The playlist is titled not quite breakcore rather than something like absolutely breakcore or breakcore mix due to the fluid nature of genres and music’s resistance to strict categorization.
Traditional breakcore focuses on crafting abrasive and chaotic drum sounds, often diverting attention from melodic and harmonic elements. Departing from this conventional definition, the term "breakcore" has more recently developed into a catch-all label for any electronic music emphasizing fast, percussive samples, such as jungle or drum and bass. Many traditionalists within the online breakcore community argue that this broad application dilutes the niche by stripping it of its distinguishingly brutal and glitchy qualities.
It is understandable that breakcore purists wish to protect the medium they cherish, especially when they perceive their subculture as being co-opted or transformed by outsiders. However, such shifts are not unprecedented; they are an inherent aspect of cultural evolution. Since the names we assign to sounds are a matter of semantics and interpretation, cultural labels will inevitably change over time. This does not mean it is wrong for the breakcore community to resist change, nor is it wrong for those outside the community to adopt the term when describing adjacent styles. Culture is the impartial result of a clash between old and new, adapting to the needs of the moment.
