Alec Empire

Alec Empire established Berlin's Digital Hardcore Recordings and generated some of the 1990s' most stylistically varied recordings, issuing material both under his own name and as a member of the group Atari Teenage Riot. Associations with ATR's productions often defined his public image, centering on lo-fi breakbeats accelerated to thrash velocities that fused punk's vitality, industrial music's unrelenting harshness, hip-hop's posture, and techno's forward orientation. Solo releases instead took him across isolationist ambient, electro, breakbeat, hard techno, ragga-jungle, and even warped lounge forms. Through these explorations he attracted listeners from disparate scenes while releasing on Germany's Mille Plateaux experimental and electronic label. His earliest U.S. visibility arrived after the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal Records signed Atari Teenage Riot in 1996.

Born May 2, 1972, in West Berlin, Alec Empire first absorbed influences from rap and the breakdancing scene before turning to early punk and performing in multiple bands throughout the late 1980s. Entering the following decade he developed a strong interest in acid and techno sounds yet rejected the associated drug culture at raves. He began issuing EPs on Force Inc. and its Mille Plateaux subsidiary, then co-founded Atari Teenage Riot in 1992 alongside Carl Crack and Hanin Elias. Although ATR pursued a somewhat rock-leaning direction, the project remained extreme, drawing punk inspiration for its political lyrics and screamed vocals while relying on acid synth lines and heavily distorted breakbeats. Following the collapse of an Atari Teenage Riot agreement with British Phonogram, Empire applied the remaining Phonogram advance to launch Digital Hardcore Recordings in 1994 and issued EPs that year under his own name plus those by EC8OR, DJ Bleed, and Sonic Subjunkies. Both ATR and Empire also appeared on Riot Beats, a brief Force Inc. sublabel whose aesthetic closely matched and slightly anticipated that of Digital Hardcore.

Mille Plateaux brought out Alec Empire's first solo album, Generation Star Wars, in 1994; the initial pressing featured contentious artwork depicting a stormtrooper whose helmet bore a swastika. Empire has consistently upheld a firmly anti-fascist and anti-Nazi position, intending the image as social critique, yet German law banned the artwork and substituted a plain black cover bearing only text. Two additional Mille Plateaux titles followed in 1995: the compilation Limited Editions 1990-94 and Low on Ice (The Iceland Sessions). That same year Atari Teenage Riot completed 1995, Digital Hardcore's inaugural release. After issuing the 1996 albums Hypermodern Jazz 2000.5 and the ambient/musique concrète set Les Etoiles des Filles Mortes, Empire delivered his first Digital Hardcore full-length, The Destroyer. More aggressive and intense than prior work, the record helped establish the breakcore genre alongside releases by Panacea, DJ Scud, Christoph Fringelli, and fellow Digital Hardcore artists Christoph De Babalon and Patric Catani.

Shortly afterward the DHR collective, encompassing ATR and EC8OR, toured the United States at the invitation of Grand Royal Records. Grand Royal began issuing 7-inch singles by Empire, ATR, Shizuo, and EC8OR toward the close of 1996. Atari Teenage Riot presented its American debut, Burn, Berlin, Burn, a compilation drawn from earlier DHR material, while Empire supplied remixes for Björk, Cibo Matto, Buffalo Daughter, and additional artists. Squeeze the Trigger, assembling Empire's Riot Beats output, appeared on DHR in 1997. Geist Records, the imprint Empire himself created, released the box set The Geist of Alec Empire collecting tracks from his Mille Plateaux recordings and compilations, later reissuing those albums individually. Empire joined Techno Animal (Kevin Martin and Justin Broadrick) for a dark, abstract hip-hop album credited to the Curse of the Golden Vampire, issued in 1998.

Empire's solo album Miss Black America, shifting between digital hardcore pieces and more abstract compositions, surfaced in late 1998. ATR's 60 Second Wipe Out, the first to include fourth member Nic Endo, arrived in 1999. That year Empire also released We Punk Einheit!, a chiptune album created on a Game Boy and credited to Nintendo Teenage Robots. Khan's El Turco Loco label put out Alec Empire Vs. Elvis Presley, an unofficial collection of digital hardcore remixes of Presley material. The record marked Empire's final release in the high-energy breakcore style for which he had become best known. Following Carl Crack's death in September 2001, ATR disbanded, though Empire and Endo maintained their partnership. Empire's double album Intelligence & Sacrifice appeared in 2002, spanning brutal electro-punk co-produced with Endo and sci-fi-inflected ambient and electro. A sequence of live albums, including a noise collaboration with Merzbow recorded at the historic New York punk venue CBGB, preceded the guitar-driven Futurist in 2005.

Empire and Endo launched the label Eat Your Heart Out in 2007. The imprint released Empire's new wave-oriented The Golden Foretaste of Heaven that year and began digitally reissuing numerous DHR catalog items in 2008. Bass Terror, a double album of hardcore material from Empire's Force Inc. period, also emerged. Shivers, extending the dark new wave trajectory of the preceding release, came out in 2009.

ATR declared its reunion in early 2010. Hanin Elias did not take part, and American MC CX Kidtronik assumed the role left by the late Crack. The band performed numerous concerts and festivals across Europe, Asia, and North America during 2010 and 2011, while the studio album Is This Hyperreal? was jointly issued by a revived Digital Hardcore Recordings and Steve Aoki's Dim Mak. Kidtronik gave way to MC Rowdy Superstar, and ATR's Reset appeared in 2014. Although this configuration of ATR stayed active, Empire recorded the soundtrack to the dystopian film Volt, released by Dependent Records in 2017.