the (digital) hardcore continuum - no, seriously

Lately I’ve been listening to a ton of Alec Empire (& associates) & enjoying it rather immensely.

It quite surprised me how great a lot of both the DHR catalogue & Empire’s other solo work is – tbc he feel off hard around the turn of the millennium – we’re talking about say ’92-’97 here but man what a run! It surprised me how junglistic a lot of it is, especially like his records on Force Inc. & the early DHR stuff which are like straight up proper jungle but only half of jungle – it’s like somehow only the bad vibes made it over to Germany, just the pure darkest Darkside, none of the loved-up bliss to temper things out. Pure Thanatos (literally), no Eros. Which is surely an eventual dead end but damned if it didn’t produced some killer records along the way. I mean seriously his stuff ca. ’93 sounds like 2 or 3 yrs ahead of what even most of the classic UK jungle dons were doing at the time, tuff as hell bloodclart jungle tekno with Acardipane-style gloom & divebombing Cologne acid strewn over everything.

I was expecting a lot more silly shouty gabba-punk bizness a la ATR – there’s some of that too, Ec8or (ugh, that name – typing names with gratuitous numbers makes me feel stupid by association) tho their AK-78 12” is a KILLER on the Nasenbluten tip. I didn’t realize how almost single-handedly responsible Empire was (well, also Amen merchants of death a la Remarc & the whole Hellfish/Producer thing) for spawning breakcore via influencing Scud & whoever. Man, breakcore – a case of diminishing returns if ever there was one. Zone of Fruitless Intensifications & all that – most of the classic DHR stuff is hard as nails but it still has room to breathe, it’s not just mashed up nonsense for it’s own sake.

Also he released a whole string of ambient/techno LPs on Mille Plateaux which are all also supposedly totally awesome but I wouldn’t know cause I’ve never heard any of ‘em.

Anyway so I’m kind of bewildered. Or maybe just bemused. The whole “digital hardcore” (brilliantly stupid name btw) thing seems like a widely underrated chapter of electronic music history. I mean, do ppl write it off cos of ATR? I know I did – growing up I lumped ATR in with both the Chems/latter Prodigy (during that brief moment in the late 90s where it seemed like techno, if it got dumb & rawk-ed out enough, might actually breakthrough in the U.S.) & also like NIN/White Zombie – the vaguely goth/industrial kids were into all of it & from there it’s a slippery slope to Slipknot & Korn. It probably doesn’t help either that Empire, not too surprisingly tho rather ironically given his very strong & prominent anti-fa themes, inspires/ed the worst kind of fanatical fanboys who devoutly preach his greatness.

I mean he’s kind of a singular genius a la the Basic Channel blokes or Wiley – one of these guys who just spawns entire genres in their wake – but his legacy has some things going against it – the lack of black influences (pretty much excised by ’95 or so when things get much stompier), in fact the common string tying it all together – hardcore punk, gabba, acid tekno, the hardness of jungle minus the funk, industrial – is loud fast angry young white guy noise. Not exactly like to impress soulboy/curator types I reckon. Too smart for the kids too dumb for the intellectuals innit, all the commercial stuff too harsh & weird to sell but smoothed over enough to ruin his cred with all the obscurantists & underground noise merchants...

Plus did I mention he fall off HARD? Jesus wept...it’s like Rammstein mangling a cover of the worst Cure song ever. tho not as bad as The Mover being reduced to doing songs with Scooter I guess...

anyways, uh, thoughts? a whole bunch of interesting things; DHR as the successors to krautrock - i.e. Germans stripping black music forms of their blackness a la Neu! (tho now surely that German fellow whose name I can't spell will stop by to tell me that jungle was invented in the 70s by bearded German blokes with homemade synthesizers - just kidding kamraden) - plus ATR & Can both had Japanese weirdos as members. the whole DHR/Riot Beats/etc. axis - the only contemporary "jungle" scene outside the UK as far as I know - how different their take on it was removed from that scenius. was ATR in fact one of the more successful attempts to make "subversive" pop music? some kind of pretentious crap about end of/post-Cold War Berlin existential malaise & the death drive - someone more learned jump in here???

or perhaps I'm only one who finds any of this rather fascinating?

It's true. As exhibit A I present: the Boredoms. As oft (mis?)quoted:

"The Boredoms are like a moon on a lake. Only there is no moon & no lake. Only Boredoms".

I've never been able to decide if this is impentrable Zen Dadaist bollocks or one of the most profound things I've ever heard.

zhao said:

whoa did not expect this post. about 8 years ago i woulda been all over it. saw them at the Troubadour around that time, at one point between songs Nic Endo handed me the mic and asked me what i thought because when some drunks were yelling "will you marry me" i yelled "ATR is a product", and had only enough time to explain that i thought ATR was a product of capitalism as much as anything else, just the flip side, but delivered some other sophomoric line like "the old must be detroyed before the new can be born", before they tore into the next song. i mean at the time their new album was just out, and some big french fashion photographer worked on the packaging...

Click to expand...

that's kinda the point tho isn't it examining it from a removed distance - also tho man I was really trying to make the point that nearly all the non-ATR stuff on DHR is like, loads & loads better. I mean ATR is maybe more interesting as a pop culture phenomenon but the music really doesn't stand up. that's a cool story about tho - reminds of old basement hardcore shows - I reckon that ATR's live shows were pretty excellent...

zhao said:

comparing this stuff to Neu! is a bit of a stretch though? :slanted:

Click to expand...

nah! I'm talking the German take on jungle here man - krautrock generally too tho Neu! being the "purest" of the krautrock heavies if you will. plus you don't see any similarity here - these ultraserious German guys taking this warmblooded music & flipping it inside out, icy icy cold & harsh (yeah I know I'm kind of trafficking in stereotypes here but it's true I tell ya). Something like "Negativland" & I dunno, the Sonic Subjunkies.

tho I reckon this is DHR's problem - too brutal/dark & daft/testosterone to appeal to the kinds of people who rate Can & Stockhausen...which should've been a big part of their demographic man, this shit is nothing if not avant as fuk.

mistersloane said:

They were brilliant, the beginning of the 21st century for me really. I'll never forget Djing at some gay place in the mid-90s and putting an ATR track on and this guy coming up to me with an almost beatific look on his face and going 'What IS this? What do you CALL it?', just totally gobsmacked.

Click to expand...

the beginning of the 21st century I like that. yeah man as much as I love jungle proper listening to both 15 yrs after the fact the DHR stuff - I mean wouldn't say better - but it's still got this alien quality to it - none of those soul diva hooks as palliatives. a bit like early black metal even how sonically raw it is...tho...

mistersloane said:

I got sick of them / Scud / etc pretty quickly though

Click to expand...

yeah it really is a dead end. tho I mean I think there's something very appealing about music headed towards those dead ends, up to a certain point - like Napalm Death or Earth or something.

zhao said:

yeah i (and someone else around here) really rate that Christoph De Babylon album. so good... and i still stand behind the early Position Chrome "Terror-Step" shit, especially Panacea's Low Profile Darkness. i mean talk about a Teutonic take on drum n bass... had no problems with the over-the-top testosterone and almost comical maniacal darkness what so ever. was perfect for a very angry period in my life... god i played that shit so much. remember clearing dance floors with it when i first started DJing - unintentionally though, i was like why aren't people getting this??? LOL... not like DJ Scud who would boast of making the crowd run for the door in seconds flat...

Click to expand...

make me three on Christoph De Babalon - best DHR producer after Empire I reckon - I love how ultracontrarian it is like to the point of absurdity, I mean If You're Into It I'm Out of It, seriously, that might actually be the single best DHR record. to bring up black metal again I always think of that in tandem with Bethlehem (also German) - Dictius Te Necare released the same yr I think - both just the epitomy of bleak bleak bleak but in a kind of magical way. & 2nd on Panacea as well...

polystyle desu said:

The DH crew has done fine, they play the big Festivals in Japan and tour when they like, release when and what they want and still don't give a *uck what everyone thinks.

Click to expand...

nah man good on them, whatever - I think tho even Alec would hardpressed to compare what he's doing now to his seminal stuff from the early/mid 90s.

polystyle desu said:

Liked the recent Rok - meets DAF -ish trash stuff.

Click to expand...

nah that's fair - I mean I've liked some of his more straightahead shouty/angsty rock bizness - but I mean it's Alec Empire as a rock singer, you know? I mean he's on my short list of genius producers with Carl Craig & Photek & Wiley & whoever, it just seems like kind of a waste - anyway tho if that's what he wants to do at least he's well equipped for it, he's got that rockstar charisma by the bucketful no 2 ways about it...

I checked out the audio clips on Christoph De Babalon's MySpace - not bad, certainly more up my alley.

and tbc I made this post cos I think the DHR crew don't actually get the proper credit they deserve...

mms said:

yeah the dhr stuff was good, this has been discussed here b4 i think, but it's much more auteurist than scenesus, like jungle, i don't think his stuff sounds willfully years ahead but willfully harder to dance to and more trashcan beats than jungle.

stuff like the riot beats and their relationship to jungle is 'politically/racially' is more like albert ayler or john coltrane to machine gun by brottsmann i think.

Click to expand...

yeah I'm sorry if this is a repeat discussion - I did a search before I started the thread & nothing obvious came up.

well alright - are you familiar with the real early stuff, like the Bass Terror EP or the first DHR releases - cos those are straight up darkside jungle records (he also made an ace ragga-ish jungle record as DJ Mowgly), totally danceable. maybe yrs ahead is an exaggeration - one thing is that those records are actually pretty well produced, like the chopping/arranging of the breaks is pretty complex/fast for '93. it makes me think like a forerunner of Soundmurderer & SK-1 (not nearly as ragga-ed out tho) - hard, fast, heavy, but still slinky, really well put together. all that distortion & trashcan beats comes in later - that whole kind of over-the-top gabba punkish side of DHR I'm not really into nearly as much as the bleak, despairing proto-breakcore stuff.

your other point is interesting - tho I know next to nothing about free jazz but I'm pretty sure I see what you mean. one thing tho - the DHR ppl made a stab at making populist music with ATR - so it's not like they were totally shut up in some pure avant corner. anyway...

mms said:

My favorite stuff is actually the scud stuff as it just seems to replace the ravey ecstatic stabs and luscious prolonged orgasim stuff like the female vocals etc with noise and grime bordering on pain, plus you can dance to it.

Click to expand...

yeah all the Ambush stuff is ace. tho I mean I think this also true of the Sonic Subjunkies stuff & Christoph De Babalon, esp. the latter nary a rave stab nor wailing diva to be found just unrelenting grimness & dread atmosphere tho I dunno how danceable it is.