REVIEW: Atari Teenage Riot, 60 Second Wipeout (Grand Royal)
- Michelle Aguilar
In 1975, Ralf Hutter of the pioneer German band Kraftwerk told Creem Magazine, "When you play electronic music, you have control of the imagination of the people in the room."
A quarter of a century later, this is still the ideal of much of the electronica/rave nation, which dreams of transforming the dance floor into one unified aural and visual Borg Collective of beats and mind expansion. ("Why won't you trip like I do?") And, of course, in this metaphor, the center of the hive mind is the dj, the invisible queen, rarely seen yet clearly controlling the floor's zeitgeist.
That scares the hell out of Atari Teenage Riot, the Berlin hardcore electronica outfit who two years ago made a nothing-if-not-startling U.S. debut with the genuinely ear-shredding disc Burn, Berlin Burn! (distributed domestically by the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label), and the group toured with Beck, Rage against the Machine and the Wu-Tang Clan last year.
To hear ATR founder Alec Empire tell it, the atmosphere at your average Berlin warehouse party these days is a bit too reminiscent of fascist Germany for his comfort - too many drones, too much conformity, too little spark.
The answer? Anarchy of course, says ATR, and that's the promise on their latest noise opus, 60 Second Wipeout, a guaranteed lease-breaker of an album that weds hardcore punk to a harem of aggro, jungle and hip-hop, all with the express purpose of biting the trippy hand that fed it. The album starts out with what sounds like audience cheering distilled into hostile white noise and it never lets up from there. These angry nuggets are an ever-changing collage of breaks, beats, electronic noise, feedback and vaguely-familiar samples, all running white hot at 210 bpms, which at times makes "60 Second Wipeout a bit more of a rumpshaker than you might expect from a bunch of Marxist malcontents.
Still, despite the melting pot of influences, this album is definitely steeped in hardcore, with lyrics not so much sung or rapped as much as shouted repeatedly, like anthems. In fact ATR's aesthetic only truly begins to make sense only when you hear the Sham 69 and Stooges samples they wear on their sleeves, and when you know that Empire's first musical experience was playing with the German punk band Die Kinder (The Children) at age 12, or that he didn't start deejaying until the late 1980s.
The electronic equipment only allows ATR to be harder and faster then any of the punk bands Empire might have worshipped. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. On songs like "Revolution Action" and "Atari Teenage Riot II," (think super-fast Public Enemy with no low-end) this approach makes for undeniable adrenaline. In other songs, like on "No Success" and "Too Dead for Me," the sound is a stone wall separating band and listener. But then, ATR has always rebelled against that image of the musical Reich, the band and the audience in homogenous symbiosis. A little alienation and disintegration is good for the soul, they would probably say. And any time you start feeling too out of touch with the album's rhythms, Hanin Elias' intense high-pitched scream emerges, making you feel like you just GOTTA get on your feet, NOW! Her pipes leave pretty much any Riot Grrl in the dust.
Sadly, that's even true for Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna, who makes a guest appearance on "No Success." Hanna's performance practically slips into indistinguishability in the face of the Atari sonic assault, as does the work of other guest stars, like Fear Factory's Dino Cazares ("Death of a President D.I.Y.") and members of the New York hip-hop outfit The Arsonists ("Your Uniform Does Not Impress Me" "Anarchy 999" "No Success"). These famous guests may give the album even more cred (as if the Beasties connection and the countless gushing articles in NME weren't enough!), but they have little impact on ATR's sound. But then, to do so would probably be like trying to hold the waves of the ocean in your hands.
All in all, a slightly noisier Teenage Riot than the last time around, but perhaps even more likeable. The next time you go driving with your old friend who thought Black Flag was God, slip this one into the tape deck and watch that surprised smile appear. Or do it to get a rise out of your hippy-dippy raver friends. Or just turn it up good and loud in your apartment and wait for the landlord to show up with your rent deposit in hand.
