Atari Teenage Riot is the
sound of punk, breakbeat and glitchy electronics, with a message behind the noise, something of the modern version of
a riot set to music. The German group was
briefly associated with the Phonogram record label back in 1993, but only long enough
get a record deal with an unrecoupable advance, piss off the label, cut those ties and form their own new label:
Digital Hardcore Recordings. From there, the group made three albums and about a dozen singles and EPs, toured the world, then went quiet in 2000. That is, until last year when
the group reformed to tour, and the revised cast of characters recorded a new album, which is
streaming online. Step inside for more history and noise.
The story of Atari Teenage Riot started before the 1990s, with the background of front-man Alexander Wilke-Steinhof, better known as
Alec Empire. He grew up in Germany near the Berlin Wall, with what he described as "
[t]his tension every day that things might go off... It's not fear, it's being alert." Protests and demonstrations, mixed with the new American music brought in by US soldiers. As a youth, he was a fan of rap, but came to feel the genre was too commercial. Then he was in a punk band, but felt that the punk movement had nothing new to say. His next venture into music was the world of raves and electronic dance music.
Initially going by the name
LX Empire (
mis-credited as LX Emoire on one of his few discography listings for this alias), he signed with Force Inc, along with future band-mate Hanin (Elias), with whom he
produced a 1992 EP (
sample). While with Force Inc, LX Empire became Alec Empire, and he
released a number of singles under his solo alias, including his
1991 take on the acid house/techno style . In 1992, he released three solo singles with a new sonic direction, two of which included some odd notes on the record labels:
Warning! Alec Empire is a member of Atari Teenage Riot! and
Warning! Never trust a DJ! A.T.R.'s gonna fuck you up!
While
the sound wasn't
too hardcore quite
yet, ATR had formed, and
it had a purpose: to provide a response to
the neo nazi movement of the early 1990s, who had "declared techno as the 'true German music'" as part of an attempt to appeal to German youth. Empire's reply was to use music "rooted in Afro-American funk music in the late 60ties and 70ties" that was also related to civil rights and radical political groups, sampling and modifying the breakbeats from funk tracks. (Tangent:
in recent years, faster beats have been
adopted by some neo-nazis)
From this blend of underground techno and political activism, Alec Empire, Hanin Elias and Carl Crack (born Carl Böhm) created Atari Teenage Riot. At the young group's second show, A&R reps from various labels were present, looking to sign the band as a way to cash in on the Dance Craze of such acts like
The Prodigy and
2 Unlimited.
"So we went for the deal with the highest unrecoupable advance which was very high in those days. Then our goal was to get out of the deal as fast as possible by sabotaging the whole thing. It worked. A year later we started DHR with that money, pressed up the first 12 inches, John Peel loved those and then it all started to happen..."
DHR, Digital Hardcore Recordings, was funded with the funding that Phonogram gave the group to record an album, but they did everything they could to ruin the deal. In the end, Phonogram
released two singles from the group
in 1993, and
in 1994 the first DHR single was released, and it was getting hardcore (sample:
Pleasure Is Our Business (live)). The label was bigger than ATR, and included
many like-minded artists.
The next year Atari Teenage Riot released a full album of material,
initially titled 1995, then re-titled
Delete Yourself! when the album was re-released two years later. Tracklist: 1.
Start the Riot! / 2.
Into the Death / 3.
Raverbashing / 4.
Speed (
video) / 5.
Sex / 6.
Midijunkies / 7.
Delete Yourself! You Got No Chance To Win! (Live In Glasgow 17.10.1993) / 8.
Hetzjagd Auf Nazis! (original version, not Live In Berlin 25.2.1994) / 9.
Cyberpunks Are Dead! / 10.
Atari Teenage Riot / 11.
Kids Are United! (
HD video) / 12.
Riot 1995
To that point, Atari Teenage Riot had released any music directly to the US, but
that changed in 1995 when members of the
alt/math rock group
Chavez introduced Mike Diamond (aka Mike D of The Beastie Boys) to ATR, and got DHR connected to
the Grand Royal label (
which closed in 2001; label discography).
In 1997, the group released their second album.
One reviewer said the album was more diverse, but with less of an impact than the first album, noting that
1995 included a number of previously released singles. Tracklist: 1.
Get Up While You Can / 2.
Fuck All! / 3.
Sick To Death (
video)/ 4.
P.R.E.S.S. / 5.
Deutschland (Has Gotta Die!) / 6.
Destroy 2000 Years Of Culture / 7.
Not Your Business / 8.
You Can't Hold Us Back / 9.
Heatwave / 10.
Redefine The Enemy / 11.
Death Star / 12.
The Future Of War. The Japanese edition, as well as the second DHR pressing, included three bonus tracks: 13.
She Sucks My Soul Away / 14.
Strike / 15.
Midijunkies (Gonna Fuck You Up) (Oscillate Mix). That same year, Grand Royal put together a compilation for US audiences, titled
Burn, Berlin, Burn!, taking tracks from the group's first and second albums.
The group's third album,
60 Second Wipe Out, was released in 1999
in various editions. The album featured work by
Nic Endo, who had previously toured with the group. 1.
Revolution Action (video with
Space Invaders, or
text messages) / 2.
By Any Means Necessary / 3.
Western Decay / 4.
Atari Teenage Riot II / 5.
Ghostchase / 6.
Too Dead For Me (HD video) / 7.
U.S. Fade Out / 8.
The Virus Has Been Spread / 9.
Digital Hardcore / 10.
Death Of A President D.I.Y.! / 11.
Your Uniform (Does Not Impress Me!) / 12.
No Success / 13.
Anarchy 999. The US edition included a bonus track (14.
No Remorse (I Wanna Die)), from the
Spawn soundtrack.
The studio work is only half of ATR.
ATR toured with a wide variety of groups, backing Moby in Holland, Rage Against The Machine and Wu-Tang Clan on a US tour, and the
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
JSBX even collaborated with ATR for a track called Attack.
But the group wasn't always so cordial. Live shows could be a bit intense, as during a show in Brazil,
Hanin Elias punched a security guard with her microphone when he groped her, and at another show, Carl Crack had a psychotic breakdown on stage and tried to stab people with his microphone stand because he thought he was a Zulu warrior. In March of 1999,
John Peel invited ATR to play at the Queen Elizabeth Hall before the band released
60 Second Wipe Out, and
the show sold out, and ended with a riot. In a review of the evening, an NME reporter pondered, "
If Atari Teenage Riot can do this in a chamber orchestra hall, imagine what havoc they could wreak with a baying festival mob." People didn't have to wonder for long, as on
May 1, 1999 ATR played at the Revolutionary Labour Day event, and were arrested for inciting a riot (context:
May Day for Dummies, and
an extended clip with commentary by Alec Empire). The band ended with one last blast:
Atari Teenage Riot played in November 1999 at Brixton Academy. Instead of performing individual tracks, it was solid sound. The show was less than half an hour, but it was recorded for posterity -- "
Live At Brixton Academy is the sound of a riot in progress."
The group was worn from an extended period of touring, and they unofficially disbanded in 2000. Hanin Elias had a child around that time, making an imminent return to ATR unlikely. Then in 2001,
Carl Crack died of a drug overdose, at age 30. The remaining ATR members went their own ways -
Elias formed a small label and recorded some solo work, and
Nic Endo released a solo album, too. Endo's album was released on
Geist Records, a short-lived sub-label of DHR. Alec said he was involved in
more records than in the '90s, including running
a new label - Eat Your Heart Out.
DHR released two compilations of ATR material:
Redefine The Enemy!, a rarities and b-sides comp. in 2002, then a broader retrospective titled
1992-2000 in 2006. Alec put his old label on hold in 2007 to
focus on his new label.
Last year,
Atari Teenage Riot announced a reunion tour and
released a new single (
A side,
B side on Soundcloud). Except the new ATR was only half of its former self, with Carl Crack dead, and
some weirdness/ugliness between Alec Empire and Hanin Elias (posted on Facebook, to boot). Nic Endo took on some lead vocals, and the group now includes
Atlanta-based veteran of the underground hip-hop scene, CX KiDTRONiK, who
wasn't intended to replace Carl Crack, but to provide a new voice and sound in ATR.
ATR was back
with an extended tour and new US label,
Steve Aoki's Dim Mak Records.
The touring went well, and one single lead to
a video and
another single (
MP3 on RCRD LBL), and finally a whole album (track-by-track review,
streaming online without track breaks, and
on YouTube as single tracks).
More Bits and Pieces
* There used to be a detailed Alec Empire fansite, but it's now
reduced to a semi-functional copy on the Wayback Machine.
* Another
Alec Empire interview, this time with talk about his new gear and studio set-up
* ATR still has troubles in/with Germany:
the 1997 ATR album The Future of War was banned in Germany in 2002 (Wayback Machine), and
the German branch of the iTunes Store doesn't like part of an ATR app, called "Riotsounds Produce Riots," an audio player that features sounds that ATR used at a May Day protest in 1999, at which the band members were arrested, noting that the app feature generates "very low sub basses, square waves, noise sounds which trigger hysteria and panic within the audience."
posted by filthy light thief at 12:10 PM on May 25, 2011 [2 favorites]