the (digital) hardcore continuum - no, seriously

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
glad i said pretty much the same thing as i said 4 years ago on the subject as i've said now (feels so old:slanted)

lol. I thought it was quite comforting, and very exact, I was quite impressed that you could still remember what people were called and stuff, my memory is shot to hell for detail now *totters and reaches for hearing bugle*
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
not only that MMS but you really nailed most of what I was trying say with:

he was also one of the early people to rinse out the punk/revolutionary potential of rave, also with those riot beats records he was one of the first non scene artists and one of the first non english artists to approach jungle with their own attitude, well before drill and bass was de rigeur with the idm hoi puloi.

this is a huge part of the appeal for me - that there's never any contemptuous sneering at the jungle (or gabba) proles, just these great stripped down records that speak for themselves - no pretentions to "musicianship" or whatever.

I feel like one has to include Hellfish as well in this vein - tho he did came out the ardkore (mostly the happy side surprisingly) scene - he was also pushing a similar kind of extreme aesthetic way before it was cool - Deathchant is maybe even a more underrated label, I reckon cos a lot people just lump it in with gabba?

also Herr Hamarplazt with this gem of an insight:

but all in all the Digital Hardcore thing was such a bad move for him... it was just so obvious what he was doing, so forced, such a lame return to rock'n'roll mythology.

this kinda goes to that point I was trying to make about Neu! - I mean imagine Neu! trying to make a "proper" rock album, how awful that would have been.
 

lissajou

Well-known member
speaking as someone who spent the 90s brow deep in the hardcore scene, it always amuses me to see folk pontificating about alec empire as if his work was in some way novel or profound. generally speaking, we saw him as charismatic and clever and nice, if in no way as heavy or as innovative as many of his contemporaries.

sure, generation starwars was solid, cris de babalon's output remains outstanding, and patric catani's non-DHR output (I CUM...BLOOD!!1) was rugged as fuck, however
lion's share of what their circle produced was some incredibly silly shit, yo...

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???

OMG ME TOO!!! was always super perplexed when eugene, oregon ravers failed to go totally crazy when i played zekt or whatever. PHILISTINES.
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
it's all about Shizuo.
Fuckstep '98 - what a record, and what a title!
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
speaking as someone who spent the 90s brow deep in the hardcore scene, it always amuses me to see folk pontificating about alec empire as if his work was in some way novel or profound. generally speaking, we saw him as charismatic and clever and nice, if in no way as heavy or as innovative as many of his contemporaries.

no one's pontificating about the singular greatness of Alec Empire, quite the opposite if you'd in fact read the thread...though I'm glad it "amuses" you, what with your vast reserve of knowledge about 90s hardcore that the rest of us clearly lack. perhaps it's my fault for not being clear enough, "digital hardcore continuum" (which is just a joke anyway) is misleading - by it I meant not just DHR but also their contemporaries, Hellfish & Producer/Bloody Fist/Praxis etc., as well as the ppl they influenced, Ambush & so on...anyways I'm more interested in them as mutant junglists than thinking man's gabba or whatever, reckon PCP/Acardipane got that side of it nailed down really...

lion's share of what their circle produced was some incredibly silly shit, yo...

I dunno man I don't really think anyone disagrees with you...I think I was quite clear that all of Empire's best work is the pre-DHR stuff on Force Inc. (tho I think the Digital Hardcore EP & the Death EP on DHR both hold up as well)...all the ATR-style gabba lite/punk bizness is a different thing altogether. with the caveat that sometimes "incredibly silly shit" isn't the worst thing in the world...not my thing really...but surely as with anything it needs to exist to provide a context for the heavier, more "serious" stuff.

actually I'm not really sure what your point is...
 
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mms

sometimes
speaking as someone who spent the 90s brow deep in the hardcore scene, it always amuses me to see folk pontificating about alec empire as if his work was in some way novel or profound. generally speaking, we saw him as charismatic and clever and nice, if in no way as heavy or as innovative as many of his contemporaries.

go on then qualify that.
 

Dusty

Tone deaf
I am quite a simplistic person, and have always loved the ragga-jungle end of the hardcore/breakcore scene. Panacea 'low profile darkness', Alec Empire 'The Destroyer' - followed later by Bong Ra and co. I just wish more people made good solid simple music like this. Seems to be a dead genre - maybe its time for a knowing nod-nod wink-wink resurrection like Zomby's album did for ardkore.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
You , them and the continuum.

Thanks Simon S 'Fassy Breed'.
Shizou was a nut live !
Enjoyed that blurty, short circuit -y, frazzed music short set.
If anyone doesn't like the Alec continuum , there are many other threads.

That energy's still out there / in there, lurking,
thinking and releasing , redoing his website ...
 
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Amplesamples

Well-known member
Ah I loved DHR around about 98-99!!!

I went and saw ATR play for John Peel's 60th birthday, when the stage got rushed, that was a great gig.

My fave was always Bomb 20 - he made some awesome beats - very much like Shizuo or EC8OR.

A lot of that stuff strangely always seemed to me to bridge the gap between Aphex and Venetian Snares - it's got more ruffness a la Aaron Funk, but with less sophistication.

A lot of the ATR stuff was really good - especially Deutschland Has Gotta Die. DJ Scud was amazing too - ATR lost it around the time of Revolution Action though.

I remember when I missed a choir rehearsal to see ATR, and came into a rehearsal the next day with an ATR t-shirt on. Ah, the carefree days of rebellion.
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
dj scud's 'Kill or be killed', under his Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth alias is one of the most remarkable pieces of music ever i think.
 

labrat

hot on the heels of love
dj scud's 'Kill or be killed', under his Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth alias is one of the most remarkable pieces of music ever i think.

couldn't agree more...when i bought a copy the guy in the shop (pelicanneck) warned me "it's a bit roucous"
ahem...an understatement methinks.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
dj scud's 'Kill or be killed', under his Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth alias is one of the most remarkable pieces of music ever i think.

yeh it's a great track, tho I actually prefer the remix 12" - Panacea's is the best thing he's ever done I reckon - tho my favorite is the Ślepcy mix which slows it way down & lays the original sample over a like vaguely Eastern European synth line & choiral singing & random blips (& out of time cutup breakbeats of course) & even manages to toss in violins & flutes near the end...one of those indefinable tracks made up of a whole bunch of disparate elements that should never work together but work despite it all (a la "Monarch of the Glenn")...
 

Amplesamples

Well-known member
dj scud's 'Kill or be killed', under his Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth alias is one of the most remarkable pieces of music ever i think.

Yeah I had that 7-inch. Used to play it at parties a lot when I was into a lot of DHR stuff. It always hit the spot! It's just so......violent. It's somewhere in my brother's loft somewhere - must dig it out.
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
does anyone know which the film the samples in Killed or be Killed are taken from? - the lines like 'I murder people for fun' and so on.
 

mms

sometimes
yeh it's a great track, tho I actually prefer the remix 12" - Panacea's is the best thing he's ever done I reckon - tho my favorite is the Ślepcy mix which slows it way down & lays the original sample over a like vaguely Eastern European synth line & choiral singing & random blips (& out of time cutup breakbeats of course) & even manages to toss in violins & flutes near the end...one of those indefinable tracks made up of a whole bunch of disparate elements that should never work together but work despite it all (a la "Monarch of the Glenn")...

hmm, i can't agree here, as scud pretty much did a style no one had ever done before with kill or be killed, totally psychotic dancehall. It's a perfect record, a little rage bomb, it just stops people in their tracks that one.
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
hmm, i can't agree here, as scud pretty much did a style no one had ever done before with kill or be killed, totally psychotic dancehall. It's a perfect record, a little rage bomb, it just stops people in their tracks that one.

yeah every single time i've played it to other people the reaction has ALWAYS been, 'what the fuck is this?'. it's such an incredibly powerful, brutal record.
 
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