Various – Hardcore Osaka E.P (1997)

Alternative title: “I found one of the holy grails of Japanese gabber and all I got was another record in my shelf”

When I boarded the plane back from Tokyo to Berlin, there were between 40 and 50 records in my luggage. I bought that many because I wanted feel like I truly cherished the record buying opportunities that Tokyo, probably more than any other city on that planet, has to offer. But if I am honest, not many of those were records I could have only gotten in Japan. The majority of the purchases pushing me over Spring Airlines’ strictly enforced weight limits was pressed in Europe or the US. 

There was stuff that I already wanted or that I would have found interesting wherever I came across it. Many of the records were extra cheap due to the weak Yen, and I loved getting them with the extra patina of having brought them home from Tokyo. Also I was on a spending spree. I had bought a new suitcase to fill it up, not to come home with it half empty. I had 2.000 € of possible overdraft in my bank account and I was going to use every penny. So why not buy every random Dance Mania record I was able to get my hands on?

Still, there were some records I got in Tokyo that I would have never found elsewhere – for example Izumi Kobayashi’s “Tropicana”, this strange and amazing house compilation that apparently celebrates the opening of a new club in Osaka in 1993 or this odd hard house EP about drinking beer.

But my most cherished proper Japanese souvenir on wax wasn’t any rare Shibuya Jazz-Funk, melancholic City Pop or even oddball House, it was a Gabber 12” called the “Hardcore Osaka E.P”, which waited for me in Shimokitazawa’s Disk Union, which is a truly magical place.

An unmarked white Label with a stickered paper sleeve, I was immediately stricken by the name paired with a steep price tag (I think this record set me back around 60 Euros). And once I saw a shoutout to legendary German 90s producer Speed Freak on the small sticker on the generic sleeve next to a crude drawing, I knew that I would probably have to take this bad boy home with me. 

Gabber? I hardly know her!

I’m not usually one to splurge on Gabber records. Sure, I love a lot of genres surrounding Gabber, there are many Gabber records in my collection, and I own more than one item of Thunderdome merch, but I would not dare consider myself an expert in the field. Don’t get me wrong: I know what I like within Gabber when I hear it. But I struggle to identify certain strains, trends and eras. I’m often not sure I could tell a Lenny Dee track from one by the Dream Team or Marc Arcadipane. And I couldn’t tell a Gabber track from Rotterdam to one from Frankfurt or Glasgow or, well, Osaka.

To be fully honest: When I first listened to the record I was disappointed. I hoped that with a name like “Hardcore Osaka” the contributors Oilhead, Stingers, Waxhead and Yam Yam – all of whom were and occasionally still are active in Japan’s Hardcore scene – would opt to infuse the four tracks with an unmistakable “Japaneseness”. Whether that meant vocal samples in Japanese or Koto chops or whatever, I’m not sure what I imagined. 

Unfortunately that isn’t the case. “Hardcore Osaka” uses tried and tested samples, classic vocals and rave stabs. Fortunately, “Hardcore Osaka E.P” does not need its regional novelty to stand up to its peers from the other side of the globe. Each of its four tracks is a perfect distillation of some of the trends that shaped the genre’s trajectory in Europe. From Speedcore-adjacent hectic aggressiveness (See A1 for example) to impossibly catchy rave simplicity.

Also the vocal in track B2 sounds like it’s saying “Fuck DJ Hörde”, which gave me yet another reason to throw myself into the icy lake and spend 60 Eurinos (DJ Hörde is an amazing DJ & producer & m8 of mine who you should check out!).

Another reason why I had to buy this record – I’m not gonna pretend that it didn’t matter to me – is that this is clearly an extremely rare and sought after record. If it wasn’t for the fact that this is a very pricey piece of DIY history by some Japanese guys, a record of which according to Discogs only 200 copies exist, only 120 of which were commercially available, a record that has gone for 500€ on Discogs in the past with no copies currently available, I’m not sure I would have splurged, even if I do love the music. But it is, was, has, and I did, and I couldn’t be happier to own this holy grail of Japanese Gabber!

(Funny side note: The white label says it’s “Made in Germany”. Would love to know the background to this. Did Japanese pressing plants in the 1990s not want to press this type of music? Did they not have capable engineers for cutting and mastering? Or was this a general thing for 12”s released by Japanese labels in the 1990s? I saw that catalogue No. 02 of the Bass2 label was pressed in Czech Republic by Gramofonové Závody, so it appears they were trying different suppliers.)

To hakk or not to hakk

Either way: Now would ideally come the moment in the text where I tell you about playing this one and the crowd erupting into ecstatic cheers. About flexing on some old heads with this unique piece of vinyl. About, well, some sort of satisfying conclusion. But I can’t, at least yet. At this point I’ve carried “Hardcore Osaka” with me to around 6 gigs in 3 countries without playing it a single time. I’m not sure why I’ve lacked the bravery to do it so far. 

Maybe it’s because a lot of Gabber I love often doesn’t really translate well to a dancefloor because it lacks a low end compared to the Happy Hardcore I’d play alongside it. Maybe it’s because I’m subconsciously afraid to ruin this expensive record. After all, I have no qualms to scratch up a VG Hard Trance 1€ banger from the flea market and say “OToh I love when a record has lived” but I can’t pretend that it doesn’t feel different if that record would be a month’s rent.

The closest I came to playing it was last December when my friends over at 16Pitch invited me to play their annual Christmas party at beloved Berlin basement/ fire hazard Zur Klappe. 16Pitch stands for vinyl only 170 plus bpm sets, and for packing out Klappe to its fullest capacity on a random Tuesday. While this crew is now content with throwing 1-2 parties each year, that just means their amazing and open crowd is even more hyped than usual, so I wanted to do something special.

In the past, whenever I’ve played for that crew, I brought my tightest happy hardcore heaters in order to match the gang’s polished modern free tekno and DJ Henk’s dubplates of SoundCloud hard trance. This time, though, I wanted to do something special. Though I only had an hour I planned a little journey through hardcore history, starting with some proper awkward early nineties gabber vibes. From Hardliners’ “Give me a motherfucking breakbeat” to “Wonderfull Days” to Scooter’s “Crank it Up” this tangent was so much fun and I feel like the crowd was also fully on board – it was probably helpful that on Zur Klappe’s dodgy sound system my low-end-less Amiga-produced gabber didn’t sound all that different from the more modern stuff.

Still, as fun as that journey was, “Osaka Hardcore” did not grace the turntables. But, it’s also nice to know that my copy of the record has not reached the climax of its journey yet. And if you’re ever in the crowd and you suddenly hear that classic “Amsterdam” sample come in, better give me some cheers and Hakk it up so I know it was worth it.