quoted 91 lines The New York Times, October 3, 1996, p. 16.> The New York Times, October 3, 1996, p. 16.
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> The Pop Life: Digital Hardcore
>
> By Neil Strauss
>
>
> Musicians have found a new extreme: digital hardcore.
>
> Last month, three German bands -- Atari Teen-Age Riot,
> Ec80r and Shizuo -- came to New York to perform at the
> Frying Pan, a boat docked at Chelsea Piers, and Other
> Music, a record store in the East Village. Each show lasted
> just minutes because the bands blew out the power in both
> places with their instruments. What they are known for is
> the fast, noisy, politically charged rock of hardcore punk,
> but played on the electronic instruments used in techno and
> other modern styles of dance music.
>
> Grand Royal, the label run by the Beastie Boys, recently
> released a set of singles by these bands. On songs like
> "Cocain Ducks" by Ec80r (pronounced EEE-cator), electronic
> break beats spin out of control, as a manic collage of
> bleeping electronics, scratching records and looped guitar
> riffs whir in the foreground and a female voice screams
> lines like "I hate your guts" loud enough to pin the
> needles on a VU meter to the far right side. ln explaining
> his attraction to the music, while speaking outside one of
> the aborted concerts, Mike D. of the Beastie Boys said it
> was the first electronic style he had heard that reminded
> him of the music of punks and riot grrrls.
>
> Though the compilation "Capitol Noise" (on the German label
> of the same name) highlights some American bands that have
> a similar sound most of the music comes from Berlin. It is
> made mostly by musicians who started out in hardcore bands,
> drifted into a variant of techno for several years and then
> discovered that neither offered what they were looking for.
>
> "When I started with techno stuff, I didn't use vocals and
> lyrics as a reaction to how stupid most of the punk bands
> sounded then," said Alec Empire, who started the Digital
> Hardcore record label and makes music under his own name
> and in Atari Teen-Age Riot. "I thought instrumental music
> with no message was better. But then I saw a younger
> generation that was coming up and using the music just to
> party and take drugs. So I started adding vocal messages
> into the songs, and using the music to disturb the harmony
> that is made by the Government and society."
>
> Mr. Empire described the music as full of "quick but
> relevant changes" (as opposed to the static pounding of
> most techno); distorted, overdriven frequencies,
> particularly in the midrange, and enough aggression so "no
> one can read or do anything else while listening to the
> music." His concerts in Germany attract as many as 1,000
> people who dance to the music by pogo-ing and stage-diving
> as if they are at a punk show.
>
> In songs like "Raverbashing," on Atari Teen-Age Riot's
> album "Delete Yourself" (one of the few electro albums that
> comes with lyrics), a hip-hop beat runs at warp speed and
> electronic pitches slide up and down as a voice criticizes
> rave culture with lyrics like "don't think, just dance." In
> songs by other musicians like the 23-year-old David Shizuo,
> the dance-floor directive "Throw your hands in the air!" is
> turned into a subversive command "Throw the bank in the
> air!"
>
> If you want to listen to digital hardcore by these bands,
> act fast. "Stagnation is one of the worst things that can
> happen to music," Patric Cremer of Ec80r said. "I don't
> think our music will be the same in three or four years,
> though I think it will still be extreme." By then, most
> likely, scores of other punk bands will have abandoned
> their electric guitars for digital samplers.
>
> [End]
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