On May 14th, 2021, American musician Jane Remover released an album under the pseudonym of leroy titled Dariacore. Being named after the TV show Daria, Dariacore consists of mashups of popular songs, the style of the album being an eclectic combination of hyperpop and mash-up, with fast tempos and loads of samples of popular music.   

After the album’s release, the subgenre of Dariacore cemented itself as a wild scene of artists who took samples from hit songs or “meme samples”, and fused them together with hyperpop production and elements of many different EDM subgenres, such as mashcore, Jersey Club, and Future Bass. Due to the popularity of this newfound genre, artists such as xaev, gingus and dashie gained popularity, making their own album series similar to leroy’s Dariacore.

 Dariacore artists have discographies, cover art and title names usually themed around TV shows, video games and many forms of popular media, for example: Daria for leroy’s Dariacore, Berdly from Deltarune for xaev’s Berldycore album series, or the Sonic franchise for the artist ta1lsdoll and his album series. 

Jane Remover started to distance themselves from the genre around late 2022, with some artists doing the same and moving off from the sound. Around 2023, the genre saw a resurgence with leroy’s surprise release of graverobbing. During this time, Dariacore would also gain a cult following in Japan due to the netlabel Lost Frog Productions, which released several compilation albums. 

This resurgence of dariacore would include artists taking influence from other EDM genres such as Complextro, Riddim and Hardstyle. Artists under Lost Frog also would take inspiration from Pre-graverobbing artists, having themed discographies around certain IP’s and franchises, with a common one being Roblox. 

I managed to get an interview over Discord with musician riphyaku, a Filipino artist that currently has two albums released under the net-label Lost Frog Productions: Rated N for Nobody and i’m a pathetic loser. I asked riphyaku about the process behind her music, her experience discovering dariacore and general thoughts on the dariacore scene. 

Sejhne: First Question, what are some of your favorite artists to sample in your music?

riphyaku: It’s usually whatever songs are in my rotation; whenever I start a song or a project it usually starts with an idea of combining two or more songs that I like in some way. If I were to list some I’ve done in the past, the top one would most likely be Jane Remover, combined with other artists from various genres like TEED, Dance Gavin Dance, Rob Scallon, Tiny Moving Parts, Skrillex, Nulut, and a lot of others. 

Sejhne: How did you get into the Dariacore scene?

riphyaku: Back in 2022, I was an osu!mania (video game) player who was like top 10k globally at the time, grinding the game pretty much daily and having a lot of fun with it. I stumbled across leroy’s “…during pride month?” when I was playing in a multiplayer lobby and the song amazed me, leading me to search it up on youtube and discover the entire dariacore 2 album. From there I was just a casual enjoyer of leroy’s music and I didn’t even know about Jane Remover at all.

Fast-forward to January 2023, I discovered bishu’s dariacore video on YouTube, where he and his viewers attempted to make their own Dariacore tracks within an hour. What inspired me was how much fun bishu had while making his track, just combining some famous songs together into a goofy 190bpm remix. To me, Dariacore seemed like a pure indulgence for an artist: just take all the things you like, put them together, and have as much fun as you can with them.

Sejhne: How do you think Spotify’s purchase of WhoSampled will affect dariacore/hyperflip artists?

riphyaku: I mean there’s definitely a lot of hyperflip artists who depend on Spotify who might be negatively affected by it, I know copyright makes it hard for some people to even put their stuff on streaming services in the first place ‘cause it psyches them out, especially when your work has like a ton of mainstream pop samples condensed inside of a 2 minute track. On the other hand there’s people like xaev, which from my recollection from like a year ago stated that he just doesn’t care deals with whatever comes at him when it comes.

Sejhne: Do you see Dariacore becoming a mainstream genre?

riphyaku: It honestly depends, considering how maximalist it is it’s definitely more of an acquired taste for most people. I definitely think it can work as a genre for festivals and nightclubs, especially after seeing Lost Frog’s events hosted in Japan, as well as 100gec’s boiler room. There’s definitely an audience for it, it has a way to draw people in, and there’s a setting that it can thrive in. We’ll just have to see if any more DJs are down to play hyperflip for a crowd.

Sejhne: Last question, where do you see Dariacore heading in the future?

riphyaku: I definitely see a future where it thrives in festivals/clubs, and I can also see more people trying to push the genre to evolve more and more, as there are a lot of ambitious and talented producers in the scene. At the very least, I hope it stays as a beacon of inspiration for artists to just have fun and enjoy the process of making music, and connect themselves with the things they love and what makes them unique.