Ec8or

Cologne native Patric C., now residing in Berlin and operating as EC8OR, ranks among the most productive figures in the emerging cohort of digital hardcore producers who fuse hardcore breakbeat and gabber techno with punk rock, speed metal, and experimental noise. He issues and performs material under roughly six aliases, among them Eradicator, E-De Cologne, Irish Coffee, and Test-Tube Boy. His EC8OR output typically pairs him with teen punk vocalist Gina D'Orio, previously a member of Lemonbabies and Throw That Beat. Their partnership with Alec Empire’s Digital Hardcore Recordings imprint helped establish them as prominent figures within Germany’s hardcore circuit. After leaving school to dive into the nascent rave movement, Patric began producing tracks in 1991 on nothing more than an Amiga 500. He initially circulated twelve-inches of fairly linear techno from his travel bag via Cologne’s Structure collective, whose associated imprints included DJ Ungle Fever, Mono Tone, and Profan and whose roster featured Mike Ink, Air Liquide, and Biochip C. His affinity for hip-hop, punk, and death metal surfaced only once he shifted toward breakbeat gabber, a move that connected him to hardcore acid and techno outlets such as Shockwave and Fischkopf—the latter issuing his debut album Agit-Prop—before he reached DHR. That final affiliation proved decisive: besides several singles and the self-titled EC8OR album issued in late 1995, DHR’s distribution agreement with the American label Grand Royal broadened their reach, yielding World Beaters in 1998. Two years afterward the duo delivered the full-length The One and Only High and Low.