Short and Quick - December/January 2025/2026

Last short and quick of the year and still no black metal article, well let's just say I was sidetracked by some other stuff. That stuff was mostly influenced by my recent interest in breakbeat programming and included a bunch of flashcore that I have brought with me here today. More explicitly Qebrus's ◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙ [...] (or in human words Circle Square). I've also been diving into the death's dynamic shroud discography again which led me to rediscovering the Heavy Black Heart record. The last record of this short and quick is one of Dream Dolphin's many offerings, more specifically the beautiful Angel 13: From the Hyper Speed Forest. 

Dream Dolphin - Angel 13: From the Hyper Speed Forest 

Acid Trance Acid Breaks Progressive Breaks

Big Beat

Dream Dolphin is the project of Noriko Kodera under which she released 17 full length records between 1996 and 2003 exploring genres ranking from Breakbeat Hardcore to Ambient/New Age, Downtempo, Acid Trance and even Digital Hardcore. Running roughly over an hour this record mostly focuses on acid trance side mixed with some j-pop-esque vocals that could well fit on any of her other more new age focused records like Atmospheric Healing and various form of breakbeat. 

It's a blissful record that makes you feel like running through the forest at night or bathing in the sea when the morning sun comes up or simply dance in a dimly lit room with a bunch of strangers. In its most powerful moments like the amazing Dolphins Talk to You it channels all the best euphoria trance music can induce. At the same time its most ambient parts ground you after the euphoria like sitting down on your bed reminiscing about the night that just passed you by.

If you are looking for a trance record that pulls from a lot of different influences to form something unique you should check out Angel 13: From the Hyper Speed Forest and Dream Dolphin's other releases. 

qebrus -  ◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙ [...]

Flashcore IDM

Glitch Ambient Micromontage

Qebrus is one of the most interesting discoveries I have recently made and ◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙ [...] or as I will be calling it, for simplicity reasons, circlesquare is his last release as he tragically passed away in 2018 at the age of 36. His music and this record as well are a marvel in sound design and in "abstract" music. The most obvious comparison to this leftfield approach that I could think of, aside from the other flashcore artists like Xanopticon who was already mentioned in this column, are Autechre but qebrus takes it a few steps further than them in my opinion. Stripping away even more of dance musics usual rhythmic tendencies he manages to push his flashcore in a direction similar to Liminal Spaces where despite the rapid tempo of the percussion the music manages to feel almost ambient with the percussion not really being used as such but as another textural element in the song. If you're looking for something that pushes the boundaries of what electronic music can mean, check this one out.

 

death's dynamic shroud - Heavy Black Heart

Vaporwave Glitch Pop

Deconstructed Club Glitch    

 

Even though I'm a huge dds fan (check out my dds introduction article here) I only listened to Heavy Black Heart one time until I recently decided to give it another spin. Before this I always felt like it was sort of the little cousin and precursor of what Keith Rankin would go on to do on Faith in Persona (and, obviously, also the precursor to Darklife, as the first record to involve all three members). The thing is that, while I think it is good, I never really thought Faith in Persona deserved all the praise it gets, and I still tend to think it's one of the more overrated dds releases (although it does have Just to be Needed on it, so maybe it does deserve all that). So, for the longest time, I thought of Heavy Black Heart in a similar category, only that it seemed to generally be less hyped among the community, but after listening to it again, I have to say that I was so wrong. This might become one of my favorite dds records alongside Live from Japan and I'll Try Living Like This. It offers a similar take on glitch pop made from vocal chops of (mostly) current day pop songs, like Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Rey on the amazing You at Night, combined with sampled as well as original instrumentation like Faith in Persona but it feels much more broad in its influences and bolder in its willingness to let the songs devolve into glitchy chaos. This set of tracks is equally catchy as it is disorientating always transitioning between beautiful sometimes even cozy pop passages that then get deconstructed into just a few glitches and stutters. But before you can get accustomed to those the record already hits you with its next euphoric refrain.

If you have any interest in dds and haven't checked this one yet, you definitely should do so.

𝑺𝑬𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑺𝑷𝑨𝑪𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑾𝑩𝑶𝒀...