Dariacore 1-3
leroy
released 14 may 2021 / 8 sep 2021 / 23 may 2022
dariacore
originally written 28 mar 2024
edited & re-published 30 nov 2024

i love even just the concept of these albums; crafting a hyper-niche microgenre for the sake of recontextualizing cultural touchstones, through aesthetics borrowed from hyperpop's framework, along with nightcore, digicore, edm, regional club music, riddim… the list of genres is as hilariously long as these album's sample bases.

and so as much as internet genres are typically unimportant blips, mini movements that bubble around themselves for their own sake, the fact that it was just one person who made such blistering mashups that both pay homage to and create ~liminal~ recollections of electronic music, digital aesthetics, and mid/late 2000's to early 2010's internet culture, makes it come off like a well-packaged, irreplicable, and post-nostalgic symbol.

these albums are so hell-bent on new ideas with the same paint brush; like leroy / Jane Remover's indelible ability to constantly reinvent herself creatively, these albums push that competence to its limit, in just having the most fun possible with pent-up talents and the scraps saved in childhood memory recesses.

there are lightspeed shifts in attention as the tracks fly by, referencing an absurd list of endearing pop and underground memories. even as digitized, fuzzy hints pepper themselves at breakneck, the hyper-compacted, explosive production keeps the energy high, splitting itself in two before it ever repeats too much. it's focus music covered in glitter for people that never unplug. it may never reach some imagined, more meaningful place than that, but it's perfect for what it harps upon.

tracks like ricky bobby, copyright strike my fucking nuts, ...during pride month?, i never go swimming without my lip liner, her head is soooo rolling!! love her, and i hate when BOYS lie, while their titles further highlight how playful this is, are the two highlights from each that stick out most. but everything on these albums craft unique love letters (and joking prods) to what's been sampled; they become re-forged in electronic surges, with immense joy and connection among internet wells, and it destroys the genre in the process. it rids the hope that anyone else can create something better or as meaningful than its simultaneous beginning and end. even the fourth album under her leroy pseudonym, Grave Robbing, departs towards a hard dance style and duration worthy of a boiler room set. these are lightning-in-a-bottle, and they're likely the most intense, overly creative electronic music this decade has yet spawned.

high 3 / 5
created by hand, by nat!

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