MIXES

90s Hardcore/Post-Hardcore

Date : 10 May 2024

A selection of hardcore and post-hardcore tracks from the 80s and 90s that I got into when I was a young one and still hold with me to do this day.

Soft Riot | 90s Hardcore/Post-Hardcore

Details

This mix is sort of a refresher on a mix I did many, many years ago when this site first started out (even before Soft Riot was really active) called White Lodge 003: A Soundtrack To Burning Youth, carrying a lot of tracks by the same artists — and even the same tracks — but with a number of different additions and re-calibrated for the streaming age. On the link to that first mix you’ll get more of an overview:

There was a great thing that happened with the arrival of punk and hardcore in the late 70s and early 80s but I honestly felt the wave that happened in the late 80s and early 90s had as equally great of an impact in those there to see it in their youth back in the day. There was a lot of time spent on this playlist listening through hordes of bands and long lost records to condense the selection to the one seen below. I’ve tried to mix up a few more melodic tracks in the mix that come from the same sort of general “scene” that was happening across North America at the time. This overall selection is from my own perspective at the time and I distilled the choices down to tracks that I still listen to get excited about from time to time even in this present day.

In my early teens, back in the early 90s, I dived headfirst into the North American hardcore underground and was very active in that scene for the rest of my teen years, as well as a bit lesser so in my early 20s, being involved in the community, playing shows, organising gigs, getting in the van and going on tour, meeting many like-minded folks in the same scene as well as combing underground publications and record distros finding what was happening in this unique yet perhaps somewhat obscure scene happening in the US and Canada at the time.

Most of the tracks here on this same mix are are from this same time period, ranging from 1990-1997, with some coming from the second half of the previous decade with such bands as Embrace, Rites of SpringNomeansno and Happy Go Licky.

Oddly enough, even as this music even is from all that time ago still carries a lot of weight in my psyche, it still also provides some abstract influence on the way I write and arrange the music as well as the energy when playing live. It especially holds importance on how I hold community and DIY ethics with music over all of the business/marketing side of music which I reluctantly find myself having to address more often than I’d like to.

There’s a lot of tracks from rare records from the time that I love that I wanted to put on this playlist, but they’re simply so out of print that they aren’t on any streaming services — tucked away in people’s ageing record collections or sneakily uploaded to personal blogs throughout the internet. These would include tracks by Okara, Juhl, Fabric, Five-O, Navio Forge, Republic Of Freedom Fighters, Breakwater and many, many more.

Some members of these bands went onto do future bands in more recent times, notably members of Portraits Of Past playing in Tamaryn in the 2010s, singer Aaron Montaigne of Antioch Arrow currently playing in VR Sex, Justin Pearson of Swing Kids and the Three One G record label still playing in many multiple bands, John McIntire of Bastro playing in Tortoise and numerous other projects, Fred Erskine of Hoover and Jeff Mueller of Rodan still playing in June Of 44, Greg Anderson of Engine Kid now in Sunn O))) as well as Unwound re-uniting recently and a lot more players in these bands currently active, including new projects I’m likely currently not aware of.

A couple of final notes:

  • The track “Electrolux” by Hoover was covered on the first Soft Riot album No Longer Stranger, and that release in term is turn is a reference to the track “No Longer Stranger” by Universal Order Of Armageddon from their 1994 release Switch Is Down which is on this playlist.
  • If you’re not familiar with the bands on this mix, expect and NOISY, AGGRESSIVE listen!

At the time of the publication of this mix the track list was:

  • Clikitat Ikatowi “Too Simple” (1995)
  • Swing Kids “Line #1” (1994)
  • Shotmaker “Now And Then” (1996)
  • The Trigger Quintet “Senseless In Drowning” (1995)
  • Heroin “Meaning Less” (1993)
  • Spitboy “What Little Girls Are Made Of” (1995)
  • The Crownhate Ruin “Ride Your Ride” (1996)
  • Universal Order Of Armageddon “Switch Is Down” (1994)
  • Rye Coalition “White Jesus of 114th Street” (1997)
  • Nomeansno “It’s Catching Up” (1989)
  • The VSS “Silt, etc.” (1995)
  • The Crownhate Ruin “Blood Relative” (1996)
  • Hoover “Electrolux” (1994)
  • Portraits Of Past “Implications Of A Sinkhole Personality” (1996)
  • Indian Summer “Orchard” (1994)
  • Unwound “Envelope” (1994)
  • Lincoln “Sugarloaf” (1993)
  • Lungfish “Cleaner Than Your Surroundings” (1994)
  • Bastro “Hirscheneck” (1991)
  • Thumbnail “This Isn’t Working” (1994)
  • Antioch Arrow “Angel’s Lawn” (1994)
  • Merel “Waiting For A Fist Fight First” (1994)
  • Drive Like Jehu “Here Come The Rome Plows” (1994)
  • Jaks “Carnation” (1994)
  • Spanakorzo “In Love With A Liar” (1995)
  • Circus Lupus “7x4x1” (1993)
  • Current “Monument” (1994)
  • Jawbox “Send Down” (1992)
  • Rodan “Shiner” (1994)
  • Unwound “Message Received” (1996)
  • Happy Go Licky “Abandon Me” (1988)
  • Giants Chair “New Orleans” (1994)
  • Boys Life “Golf Hill Drive” (1994)
  • Sparkmarker “Sleeping With The TV On” (1993)
  • Angelhair “Space Ape” (1994)
  • Mohinder “To Satisfy” (1994)
  • Policy Of 3 “1%” (1993)
  • Hoover “TNT” (1994/1997)
  • Engine Kid “Holes To Fight In” (1994)
  • Embrace “Building” (1986)
  • Rites Of Spring “In Silence/Words Away” (1986)
  • Sleepytime Trio “Butter Scaryflies” (1997)
  • Maximillian Colby “What’s The Matter River?” (1995)
  • Angel Hair “Blood Believe” (1994)
  • The Crownhate Ruin “Blood Relative” (1996)
  • Universal Order Of Armageddon “No Longer Stranger” (1994)
  • Nomeansno “I Need You” (1993)