Quarkee stopped by to deliver an exclusive guest mix showcasing his “all or nothing” mentality and proving he’s an undeniable force in hard dance.
Over the years, the American Hard Dance scene has fostered many great artists that contribute to the scene with their innovative ideas and records. One of the artists who has been on the rise for a few years and is finally starting to carve their own path is none other than Quarkee. This young producer is going on six years of making music, with the past two years resulting in some of his best work to date. He captures American Hard Dance’s spirit with a discography that spans all genres such as Frenchcore, XTRA raw, hardstyle, and much more.
Growing up as a Japanese American in Japan, Quarkee was exposed to many popular video games, including one of his personal favorites, Taiko No Tatsujin. This rhythm video game included many records that were video game-esque takes on hardcore genres, which got him into the Japanese hardcore scene. In turn, this exposure expanded into the rest of hard dance, and today, he’s big on the rawstyle genre while keeping his taste for Japanese music. This love for hard dance music ties in directly with Quarkee’s producing journey, expressing that the style of the music itself was the biggest motivator for him to start making his own music.
One thing I can credit the U.S. for is diversity. Socially, we have many different people living here, which shows in the culture. That is absolutely no exception for hard dance in the U.S.
Quarkee
For Quarkee, dance music, and hard dance specifically, is the genre he wouldn’t survive without. He says that he understands “the appeal of emotional music, and sometimes a beautifully sung melody hits so hard, but that doesn’t have the power to produce literal walls of energy. For [him], the beefier a song is, the better.”
While other dance music subgenres also capture that energy, he’s particularly interested when people take one aspect of a record, such as the kick drum, and turn it up beyond comprehension as it feels very creative and almost rebellious. The “all or nothing” mentality resonates with Quarkee, and he attributes that to his love for hard dance, saying that the genre fulfills his desire to go all out.
I think the defining difference between American Hard Dance and the stuff in Europe is going to be the fusion of hard dance with other parts of the EDM scene. Already, we see artists like GRAVEDGR mixing trap and raw, MUST DIE! fusing bass with hardstyle, and Lil Texas collaborating with many artists outside of the hard dance world.
My current little trend has been hardstyle bootlegs of pop songs! I threw in a few genre-fusion songs in my mix, so I’m a firm believer in crossing genre boundaries to create new styles. [In the future,] I can see fans of bass music stepping into hard dance and vice versa. Diversity is the key to American Hard Dance!
Quarkee
Today, Quarkee is giving his listeners and potential new fans quite the treat in the form of a guest mix for the Paradigm Shift mix series. This mix has it all, from the rising stars of hard dance like NOTYPE and KURORO to certified heavyweights in the scene such as Rebelion and DJ Isaac, along with a multitude of originals, edits, and bootlegs from Quarkee himself. You’ll have to listen to the entire mix to find out what other weapons of destruction lie within its runtime. So strap yourself in and get ready for one of the most exhilarating editions of Paradigm Shift yet with Quarkee!
