Conversation · Egg Head

"And I have a job to do instead of this absurd idiocy! Goodbye." [Leave.]

Try to think if anything could make it... harder-core?

"Whaaaat?!" He looks at you with customary amazement. "Guys, there's something happening in his head!"

As your mind works, the beat recedes from your ears. You hear your own blood pulsing through your head, nourishing your thoughts with oxygen. The rhythm is familiar...

Feel the movement of blood through your head.

The abstract shapes swelling in the foreground have done so in vain. This is a core matter. The answer, in the double-kick that moves the millilitres through your mind. The dark thud is the source of all rhythm, the inspiration behind mathematics...

The hard core.

Think even harder.

"Oh yeah! He's DOING it!"

But you're not. This is almost certainly a matter that surpasses the limits of reason.

"My imagination fails me."

"I know, so does mine!" He laughs and shakes his head.

But there's something else that hasn't failed you...

"It's proto -- not hard core at all."

"WHOAH! Culture Cop!"

For a moment you almost think he's going to put his hand down. But that would be ludicrous.

"I think you might be right! But how could it become hard core then? I know it in my heart, but cannot think it in my head. If this is not hard core, how could anything be..."

For a moment you almost think he's going to put the tape player down. But that would be ludicrous.

"How much is the fish?"

"This is a serious matter. Stop talking about fish. Fish has got nothing to do with this."

"Psst..." You can hear the would-be leader whisper to his friend: "Don't let him know he doesn't understand the fish thing."

"It's super hard core."

"Fuck yeah, I knew it!"

He seems sure, but you are left with the nagging doubt you might have overestimated the hard coreness of that jam...

"It's hyper hard core."

"We can all hear it's not hyper hard core. If figures of authority keep telling us things are hyper, when they're clearly not -- how are we ever supposed to evolve to hyperdom?"

"Okay, I've changed my mind."

"Uhuh?" The young man raises the tape player higher in anticipation.

"I don't really have an answer for this. Tell me something else, Egg Head."

"You can't. But you do."

The young man smiles and nods. Slowly he picks up two hammers at once.

"THE R, THE C, THE M, THE THEOLOGY! AROOO!"

RCM? That's the acronym for Revachol Citizens Militia -- you! Does everything this man yells mean something? Is it truly internally coherent?

"How do you like it in the church?"

"Yeeaaaagh! Back on the case, no disgrace!" He pumps his fist in the air. "Bring it down to party place!"

"THE FIRST PAGE OF THE SECOND CHAPTER!" His voice echoes all around the grand hall.

Could it be? Maybe for him -- you only have a chapter or two left in you. Last of the penultimate, more like...

The audio onslaught can be tamed. Connect the dots.

SIDE-CHAIN THE BEAT!

Side-chain? What does it even mean?

Listen, you can use the compressor to select between which track it's compressing, either the auxiliary signal or the main input from the tape. Make it alternate between the signals.

The compressor controls the gain based on the level of the signal on the aux side-chain input. It will allow maintaining a loud sound without peaks that fill up all the headspace.

"Okay. Egg, you need to start side-chaining it." (Explain the concept to him.)

"Side-chaining it, you said?" He turns down the music, his hands moving deftly across the mixer, setting up the necessary controls...

Then he puts on his headphones and his eyes go wide, wider than they've ever gone on drugs. He starts jumping up and down with bliss, in total silence -- still listening to his headphones.

"Hey..." Acele looks up from her microphone. "What did you do to Egg Head, cop-man? Did you break him?"

"Just wait and see." (Nod at Egg Head.)

"ARE YOU READY, POSSE?!"

Noid straightens his back, ready for the beat...

"I was born ready, Egg!"

Give him a thumbs up.

The audio assault is glorious. The speedfreak dances on the stage, intensely waving his hand in the air.

"THIS IS BEAUTY, THIS IS LIFE!"

"What in the world is going on?" Acele looks on, amazed at the display.

Your body is taking a beating from the low frequencies crashing over you. It's making you feel... alive again.

"The hard core aesthetic just got more bassy."

"This is wild, the sines are off the charts."

"God damn it," you hear Andre say to himself over the thumping beat, "this dance club idea might just work out."

"DOLORIAN CHURCH -- THE PLACE TO BE!" Egg's losing himself in the sound. "Pump it, pump it!"

This is it... this is a new era. The fabric of the world has been irrevocably altered.