Hard Vibing: Meet The Collective Fanning The Flames Of Local Hardstyle & Hard Dance
Twenty4HZ and JOERU make up the co-founding members of the Hard Vibing family (Credit: Hard Vibing)
How hard do you like your beats? Like any activity, dance music is a malleable entity that can be bent to take on extreme forms. Consequently, you’ll find this maxed out permutation in the globally recognised – and sometimes, feared – domain of hardstyle and hard dance. Just like other niche genres like reggae, Chicago footwork or drum & bass, these more aggressive offshoots of the overarching EDM spectrum happen to exist in Singapore as well. Hardstyle and hard dance are contenders that continue to make their impact felt in the scene, and hoisting the hammer with all its might is collective and record label, Hard Vibing.
Launched in early 2020 in the wake of the pandemic, Hard Vibing exists to boost the subcultures of hard style and hard dance in Singapore. With a growing roster of local, like-minded DJs and producers, they have constructed their own network that propagates these amped-up sounds. The sonic profile of these genres is often characterised by distorted and overblown kicks, harsh synths, restless tempos and over-the-top melodies that are both manic and melodramatic. Despite its polarising nature, it’s a genre that’s becoming more and more accepted amongst the masses, partly attributable to the assimilation of hardstyle and hard dance into commercial EDM. The former, however, remains distinguishable, and Hard Vibing has taken on the responsibility of educating and fostering.
As a label, Hard Vibing disseminates original releases from its fiery roster, encouraging the discipline of production in this oft-overlooked genre. The label doesn’t take itself too seriously either, cheekily creating hardstyle/hard dance bootleg edits of tracks from artistes like Hardwell, George Michael, Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber and Ikimonogakari (yes, the J-pop band). With the shutdown of gigs for the last 18 months, the label’s acts have been testing out these releases and other studio experiments online, maintaining a digital presence with regular live-streams and even a Hard Vibing festival last year. They give it their all even though the screens, and it does stimulate the curiosity of what their full potential would look like once they can board the decks of live events again.
Their music is not for the faint of heart, but it definitely carries plenty of it. I have a chat with the Hard Vibing team about their gradual growth, their intentions, and where they fit in the rise of the hardstyle and hard dance movement in Singapore.
The current Hard Vibing roster also includes JOSHEN, CLOVER, and BRYAN (Credit: Hard Vibing)
Let’s backtrack to the beginning. When and how was Hard Vibing founded?
Hard Vibing was founded in March 2020 when we held our first Hard Vibing event at Get Juiced. The four of us – Twenty4HZ, JOERU, and another friend of ours who has left HV – came together after the event and decided to form this collective/label, to make hardstyle and hard dance more known in the Singaporean nightlife scene.
Is the hardstyle and hard dance community still a niche one in Singapore? Or has it become bigger through the years?
We believe that the hardstyle/hard dance community in Singapore is still a niche one. However, it seems to be growing in the right direction and hopefully, it gets bigger in the coming years.
So how big is the HV roster right now, and what does each of its acts bring to the table?
Currently we have five acts in HV: JOERU, Twenty4HZ, BRYAN, CLOVER, and JOSHEN.
JOERU brings a hard dance act that consists of happy/UK hardcore and hard-psy.
Twenty4HZ brings a combination of hardstyle and rawstyle to make the perfect combo of hard kicks and huge melodies.
CLOVER brings the hardest of hard dance music with her love for hardcore/Frenchcore music at 180-200BPM.
JOSHEN brings a mixture of drum & bass and happy/UK hardcore.
BRYAN brings more euphoria and harder kicks from the hardstyle scene to Hard Vibing.
Each member is unique in his or her own way.
As a collective, y’all also put out original releases, as well as edits and bootlegs. Is there enough local production activity in this segment of the electronic scene?
No, mainly because not many DJs in Singapore play hardstyle/hard dance music. Also, we released our music during this period of COVID-19, so our songs did not get played as much. Although, some of our remixes were played in a club in Taiwan (OMNI) and in Germany in 2020.
From a producer’s standpoint, is making tracks in this genre more than just overdriven kicks, hyped-up synths and fast tempos? Is there room for subtlety, you think?
It is definitely more than just overdriven kicks and hyped-up synths. Although our genre of music has a much faster pace compared to regular EDM, there is more emotion and meaning behind our tracks. We deliver this emotion through our melodies and overall feel of the track.
What sort of strategy do y’all adopt for your releases, and what type of material makes the cut before you choose to release it?
We have a release schedule to ensure that no one in our collective/label releases on the same day. All the materials are vet by the three musketeers, JOERU & Twenty4HZ.
For your roster of acts, how much experience have y’all had playing at performance venues in Singapore? And in general, are local venues willing to accommodate such humongous sounds for their dancefloors?
So far, most of us have played in various notable venues locally and internationally. Most clubs in Singapore are catered to more commercial sounds, hence it is challenging to pitch a full hardstyle/hard dance night.
What are some misconceptions about hardstyle and hard dance that most tend to have?
The biggest misconception that people tend to have about hardstyle/hard dance music is that they classify it as ‘siam diu’ music, just because our music has the same energy and tempo. What people hear in these ‘siam dius’ are mainly Mandopop and Eurodance.
Select an artwork to listen to each release by the Hard Vibing roster.
In recent years, these harder sounds have flowed back into the mainstream, assimilating into the accessible spectrum of EDM. What would you say is the relationship between hardstyle/hard dance and EDM nowadays?
The relationship between hardstyle and EDM is getting stronger as DJs around the world are starting to play some hardstyle tracks in their sets on the big stages. Some of them are even combining their sound with hardstyle/hard dance.
And what about the more underground pockets of the community? Does Hard Vibing pay attention to these developments too? These sounds do have stylistic origins with genres like techno, after all.
Yes, we do pay attention to these underground scenes. Some of us in fact like to listen to techno. It hits differently.
In this lockdown, Hard Vibing has also been active with digital performances on the stream. How have these formats been working out for the team?
During the lockdown, we have tried streaming on multiple social media platforms. We are currently favouring Twitch as our main streaming platform due to copyright issues on Facebook.
And for our last one, what does Hard Vibing hope to accomplish in the local electronic scene? Any major developments to look out for?
We hope to be the leading light in the hardstyle scene in Singapore and give upcoming hardstyle DJs a voice in the scene.
