Anarchist Techno

there have been attempts to strip techno, hardcore, and similiar music, of all politics in the last years. while techno in the beginning had strong roots in the working class, in countercultural movements, in freaks and outsiders, and in many cases in overt politics, this had tried to be removed eventually. and totally.
politics, anarchism, are now despised in techno. most people who listen to it don't want to hear anything about it. they hate it, it annoys them, they dislike it. if it's any politics related to "the left" or anarchism, though - right wing politics are accepted in the hardcore mileu, and eagerly passed on. it is said that "the music" and "the party" should be enjoyed for what it is, and not be about "politics". as if music could exist in a vacuum! you won't solve the troubles of society, or of your live, by merely escaping into music - not in this way, at least. and apart from that, politics and these escapees have a common goal - anarchism shows you how to escape your troubles and those of the social, and not just for an hour by an ecstasy fueled high, but permanently.
but we also see a typical 20th century dichotomy here; that of party, fun, fulfillment, highs vs boring grey "politics" - but this should be left in the 20th century. dreams, social reality, politics, and thrills don't have to be opposites, contradictionary terms anymore.
so leave the unpolitical dancefloorhead behind - on to the future!
so the situation right now is, that techno is indeed a completely depoliticised scene (apart from the right wing politics i mentioned). it's funny that in rock, punk, guitar hardcore it is still possible to put a political message across, and people accept it and appreciate it and receive it, and in techno this is almost impossible anymore, in a genre that used to be so ahead of the others.
so, let's get active. switch this. create political techno again. create anarchist hardcore again.
i know a lot of you are out there. there is a lot you can do. first, realise that we anarchist types are not some isolated flakes in the electronic / hardcore world. spread the message. get involved. do some tracks, do vocals, start a zine, anarchist techno parties, whatever. the possibilites are plenty. your imagination is the only limit. so let's get up! take a stand for our beliefs.
create anarchist techno.
the "unpolitical dancefloorheads" can stay in their consumer techno amphetamine hole for a while longer. we don't care. but we want to create political, social and - dreamer music again.

Art And Utopia

there are people who suggest music to me, various styles, the established genres, the "established niches"; they say the music is really nice, good produced, exciting, well-made, interesting, enjoyable; good to party too, good to chill too, or good to listen to in other occurances.
but, when i listen to this music, i ask myself, what has this music to do with me, how does it relate to me, how does it relate to my live, my heart; to my dreams, my desires, my thoughts, my wishes; how does it enable me to change my life, to rise above the circumstances; how does it enable me to reach utopia; how does it enable me to reach my dreams? and does it give me new dreams, now wondrous thoughts, adventure, the wonderful?
there is music like that. there was music like that. but most music, today, or maybe in the past too, is not like it. but there also is different music.
the hippies thought their music could change the world. to overthrow the establishment. to create an utopia. the punks thought they could fight society and win.
where are these artists now? where are the bands? is there an artist who honestly, deeply thinks his music could change society from the bottom up? to reach utopia? that, by his music, he could create a better world?
no, current music, current artists, are devoid of these things. because these ideas and ideals are dead for them. because any ideal, that is not "money" or "success" is dead to them. soulless music by soulless artists for soulless consumers.
who still thinks there is a revolution, of society, a political and cultural revolution, in the west possible by music and counterculture? no one? if not, why not?
or if that is too "political" for you - then, to make a better world, on a large scale, by music and art?
or at least to change your life and that of others - to a wondrous, sweet, beautiful, perfect thing?
no, these ideas seem to be gone. because people are without vision and concept now - or rather, without knowledge and insight. these ideas are still true. the ideals are still true. you can reach utopia, a revolution, anarchy - if only for yourself. it is possible.
i painted a bleak picture - i am sure there are some artists out there who still do it for the "cause". and i know there are at least still listeners - the word "listeners" is to passive, i say activists - who believe art can bring a change, and believe in revolution and anarchy, or at least in utopia, and in ideals.
and we might very likely grow in numbers soon.
the point is not to give up - but to hope, to be sure, and to be active.

True Summer Of The 90s - Fuck Arte, Let's Dance

in response to some of the misrepresentations of the 90s techno, hardcore and rave movements of the 90s as shown on the arte TV shows around the "summer of the 90s".

on the weekend 26/27.07.2014 arte tv showed their series "summer of the 90s", with also a focus on what they thought was the techno scene of the "90s". though, mysteriously, they seemed to most part to completely forget the rave, hardtrance, gabber, speedcore music that ruled the 90s in europe during that time.
while obviously speedcore was more an underground phenomenon, gabber, hardcore and rave enticed millions of people during these days. and speedcore, if not as famous, was important for several subcultures too. but for arte this obviously never existed, never did take place, instead for them the sound was all some sort of plaything of now hipster and chic "dance" producers who they interviewed in their expensive suits.
fuck you arte, yes, fuck you.
this is to show some true music "of the 90s".
shouts out to all ravers, gabbers and hardcore freaks, from back then, and from the current days.

chapter 1: hardtrance and rave

rave peaked around the years 1993-1995. millions loved these sounds and partied to them. notably for rave and hardtrance were complex synth-driven melodic and harmonic structures, undermined by powerful and frantic beats. almost a combination of 70s synth avantgarde with a jackhammer sound.

tracks:

legend b - lost in love
quench - dreams
genetic waste - palace of wisdom
state of mind - our destination

chapter 2: hardcore and gabber

hardcore and gabber didn't stand back in popularity compared with rave. every second teenager loved that sound (i suppose? at least everyone around here) and the largest raves and techno events usually had a hardcore floor too.
when techno got "chic" around the mid of the 1990s, the "scene" was quickly to jettison this hardcore heritage though.

tracks:

strontium 9000 - dynamic fall out
chosen few - after hourz
wedlock - ruffneck
wedlock - void sector

chapter 3: speedcore and noizecore

both a reaction to the commercialization of hardcore and rave, and also a feat to take it to the further extremes, speedcore remained underground, but had a dedicated following in the 90s and let to some wonderful productions.

tracks:

noize creator - gangsta
s 37 - crush your mind
dj tron - fuck that happy shit
rage reset - unknown structure

The Onslaught Of Anti-Intellectualism In Art

there was a sudden change in music in the 90s. mid 90s. i just had gotten into breakore, dark ambient, industrial hardcore. alien sounds, experimentalism, shrill FX. cold, mysterious, odd vibes. space sound.
then, it started to break down. generally, not unusual for a subculture. each has its time, i guess. but there was something that - caught my awareness. that made me worry.
suddenly, almost everyone i know, as an artist, as people involved, or as friends, abandoned the alien soundscapes of this music. to be exact, they went pop. and this did not only happen in breakcore, or dark ambient, but many other genres to.
80s were in, suddenly. cheesy 70s too. and so on.
i, back then, felt this was more than just a case of bad luck, of chance, or just another meaningless, "postmodern" phenomen. i felt i, we, were fighting a war, and we just had lost, and were now lone soldiers trapped in nowhereland. because the change was so total. so deep. in so many eras, at so many points at the same time. i back then felt that it was part of a larger problem. a larger danger.
and not until now, i realised the true extent of what happend.
it was the onslaught of anti-intellectualism in art.
techno, breakcore, hardcore, and related genres, to the mid 90s, was music for the head, on so many levels. first, directly, of course. it was music to feed your mind. to work on your intellect. to make your conciousness fly. to get into a headtrip. but it was also on a "productional" level intellectual, the way it was made. always full of ideas, experimentalism, bold new steps.
the 80s nostalgia and the rest, that replaced it, or merged with it in the mid 90s, was the opposite. simple melodies. simple lyrics. simple song structures. music that no longer dared your mind. that no longer induced deep, long, complex thoughts. but rather, that quenched these thoughts. vigorously.
and this is why people liked it. don't listen to some complicated acid hardcore structure by some freak somewhere. kick back with some abba song about love. hey it's got a simple tune, you could whistle it along. don't think too much. just relax and enjoy.
and this was part of the anti-intellectual turn of tides in almost all music fields.
the focus was now on everything simple. easy to digest. that doesn't upset you or makes you worry or wonder or ponder. melodies you already known a lot of times. themes that you heard thousand times before.
oh there are only the same four chords in most tracks? yes, but aren't they sweet sounding? doesn't strain your brain too much, eh? just relax. forget the intellectual.
even in the realm of "experimental electronica", this anti-intellectualism set in. genres like IDM were created, with the same mind-numbing, brain-killing major scale octave and perfect fifth based melodies over and over again. music for elevators.
so, as i said, these were not isolated phenomenas. the anti-intellectual swing was almost total - or was it actually total? almost everyone followed this notion suddenly. there was no real experimentation, no real intellectualising of music going on anymore. and people openly rejected the intellectual. yes, they were quite open about it. their "point" was, music that is abstract, for thinking, intellectual, is "boring". the focus should be on emotion, or maybe dancing - not on thinking. as if these were contradictional. you can dance till you sweat to some of the most intellectual music. and you can cry your heart out to honest emotions of intellectual music. fuck, i'd say you only can do this to true intellectual music. some of the classical, or modern, or non-modern composers come to mind. j.s. bach music isn't less sweet because his fugues are deeply mathematical and intellectual, or is it?
so, there was really an ideology, a cohesive movement, behind this anti-intellectual turn. repeated in magazines, blogs, reviews over and over again. always the focus on "simple tunes", simple structures. always the focus of emotion over intellect, of body over intellect. i shouldn't need to mention that "emotion", and "body" over intellect is one of the core motions of anti-intellectual ideology? one of its core concepts.
people were deeply, deeply afraid of intellectual music suddenly. they couldn't stand it. it scared them. they couldn't understand it. complex melodies, different song structures, amorphic music, music that broke the rules, the concepts, and got rid of them. it gave them the creeps. they clang so desperately to the traditional, boring, lifeless musical structures.
it should be noted, that the anti intellectualism in music, was not a standalone phenomena either. it tied in to a much larger, maybe much, much dangerous anti-intellectualism, that got viral and extreme somewhere towards the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000 years, in almost, or rather, in all areas of life.
so this, together, is part of a very dangerous, very worrying trend, that could become even more complete in the future.
but, it is no reason to give in to defeat. it is not something that has to be accepted. it should be fought, and it can be fought. in fact, a lot of us gave in to some sort of shock, became inactive, or gave in, in light of this happening. it is time we gather ourselves again, and stand up, and move on, and take a stand. a stand for the intellect, for the mind.
create intellectual music again. truly intellectual music. that at the same time, of course, can be deeply emotional, and having an impact on the body. truly complex, complicated, creative, daring, visionary, idealistic music. that breaks everyones rules, moves on from any concept. that questions all authority in music - and overcomes it.
it is time to take a stand. so let us do it.

Taking Techno Seriously

there was a time when, at least by "serious" people, anything that was not academic music, classical compositions were not taken seriously. surely, cheap fun for the plebs, but not comparable to any of the great maestros! you could enjoy them, but please don't analyse them.
this his changed a lot - extremely - in the last decades. the barriers between "serious" and "entertaining" music have been ripped down. by bands who combined both approaches, but also by public opinion. i still remember a time when everything "pop" has been sneered at by intellectuals. the experimental rock of the 70s might have been the first that got the blessing and the acknwoledgement that in such noisy, emotional, touching music could actually be a lot to analyse, to interpret, to ponder on. the next thing was that also pop albums have become the focus of serious attention. pop is no longer seen as purely entertainment music, but also having the ability to have serious musical merits - and cultural, philosophical too. even the dreaded eye of academic research now often looks at rock, pop, even hiphop, metal, punk records and culture. some of the later development was that disco and dance music got the "credibility card" and are taken serious now.
but there is one thing that is still overlooked. techno, rave, gabber, hardcore, of the 90s and later. this music, by the vast majority, is still seen as childish, immature - pure hedonistic trash to many. and to me, it was never like that. techno always felt mature and serious and deep and meaningful - being no lesser hedonistic and fun and ecstatic at the same time, mind you. so, my wish would be that slowly people would start to realise, that the same serious approach, the pondering and interpretation and worship, that is done to the famous rock and pop albums in the moment, could one day arrive at the important techno albums and EPs. that people realise that techno doesn't have to be cheaply produced music for dimwits.
and indeed, in techno, rave, hardtrance, some of the most complex and clever and intelligent production i encountered so far can be found. techno has so many philosophical, cultural, social, political connections; hints; ideas; thoughtsets (one idea of mine is that one of the reasons techno never had an outspoken political stance as such is that it was simply too complicated to express it in this way; and easier to express sonically). one can deep digger at techno, one can find so many things. there is plenty of stuff to activate ones mind on, to think about. this is the shame; that techno was not seen as the serious, deep music it is - until yet. i have a feeling this might change soon. but, also keep in mind, it is hedonistic and fun at the same time.

Past, Present, Future

progress is a concept by the status quo, and it is a complex concept, and one of the most powerful concepts, and being used as a form of oppression, and being used very effectively so. if society answers to a social or youth movement that the police might be called on them if they don't stop their ways - think of hippies, black panthers, punks and such, this in the past didn't phase them much. if society voiced what they do is "morally questionable", again, not very effect. but when society voices that their ideas, their politics are outdated, a thing of the past, "of the 70s", most people in western society suddenly give in and bow down to this tool of oppression. western people are more scared to be "outdated" or to "live in the past", then they are scared of a policeman's baton. the threat of calling the national guard might not push young or old rebels to give up - but the idea that they now have to "move on", "stop living in the past", "to grow up" makes them surrender in the thousands.
while progress and the idea that certain politics could be a thing of past decades has been used as a tool of oppression and social, crowd control for a while now, in our times, with all the technological advances and changes, it has become total - or even worse so. everyone is suddenly on a hunt to be up to date, to be modern in behavior, to "grow up", to not be stuck in past things. this has created the bizarre situation that "old folks" who grumpingly reject all that "modern crap", sneer for example at smartphones and social networks, are more radical and liberatory than all the young generations together suddenly. similiar, the dumb, middle-aged beerbelly guy who listens to the same music he done 20 years ago and doesn't care or know any modern music trends, is suddenly more of a radical than all these braindead dubstep, idm, bjork etc. listeners together.
keep in mind progress, the categorization into decades and such is just a concept and idea by the status quo. there is no "progress" as such, in the way they describe it. it's just an illusion.
now, i must say, there are actally pitfalls to "living in the past" - although it's still probably better to listen only to past music than to "modern" genres, at least in the current situation, i have the feeling it might change in the future, but that would be another topic. but, in true "strawman argumentation" style, there is also something connected to it, when people say this, which is not voiced directly first, but always implied. this is, that, if you not ought to live in the past - you should live in the present. listening to present day music, present fashion, going to present day clubs, having present opinions. and this is where the shit hits the fan. for you should never live in the *now*! never live in the present. for the present has always sucked. "present society" sucked in the 60s, has sucked in the 70s, 80s, and today. yes, maybe get rid of the ghosts of the pasts, and the past music and art and politics. but never join the present, do not listen to present day music. well, this obviously doesn't include art and music that is rejected or ignored by present day society or culture, as this art is not part of the present. but i mean contemporary, current trends in music, society, politics.
the idea of having to live in a certain time, period (the current time) is a very western, capitalist, authoritarian idea. live in any time you want! in the past - yes in the present too, maybe, if you wish - in the future - one year only read 12th century novels - another year only listen 60s music - and so on, and so on. if you don't to live in the past - live in the future. live in any time, live out of time - organize 18th century parties and play only 50s rock'n'roll to them. host a pirate theme party and play only acidhouse. and so on. the choice is yours!
but don't fall in the pitfall of "progress" and "getting away from the past". fight these concepts!

Should Music Have A Purpose?

music always had a purpose. basically, only in comtemporary western society, the belief exists, that music could be created solely and mainly for issues of pleasure, for entertainment, as a product to be consumed. music in ancient societies was deeply tied in to the societal, political, religious beliefs of that society. it was meant to honor the king and the "gods", and to spread good concepts and ideas, like social union or goodwill. in medieval times this was still the case, as the church and nobility steered the direction of music. even when europe eventually got rid of its "gods" - or rather, "the god", and the power of the church and aristocracy, around the 18th and 19th century, music, and art, was still seen as to be tied to higher ideals, principles, concepts - it was said that it should be created to spread good ideas, emotions, ideals, to educate the listener and reader, to evoke good emotions in him and, at best, convince him to do noble deeds and live a noble life himself. in fact that was the main criticism aimed at "scandalous" books or pieces at that time; that these "scandalous" artworks had the danger to instead invoke negative thoughts in a person, and could steer him in a dark direction instead of a good one (of course that criticism in most cases was wrong).
so, music was never made for the sake of music itself. it was always tied in in higher principles, higher ideals, conceptions. in the social, political structure, or the religious one. only current western society is "decadent" enough to think music ought just be made for "entertainment", to be consumed.
unlike people of the past, and other societies, western people have completely lost their connection to these higher ideals, purposes, goals in life. and their music, only logically, has lost its too. who still uses a substantially amount of energy, of his life, to fight and work for a good and noble cause? for a just, free, egalitarian society? everyone just wastes his time on petty and lesser causes, drugs, material gain, social standing, and such. who is still willing to fight for the good, and for the true?
so if you say music should be merely for "entertainment" - you are very political indeed, for this is a typical western way of thinking, and part of the "politics" of western capitalist society - to have music just as a consumer good, to numb the masses while capitalism creates more and more destruction in this world.
what is complicating issues a bit is that, in an attempt to leave the 20th century, subcultures often openly denounced the concept of music *having* to have a purpose - as i said, as this still was part of the modern idea of art in the 20th century, in a way of playing clever tactics, especially aimed at the older generations. punk and techno come to mind here. because they realised the way these older generations tried to shape the youth and *force* them onto a purpose, that might have been falsified by earlier generations already, was a trap too.
yet, one should not easily fall for this tactics. punks and technofreaks might have denounced the idea of purposeful music deliberately - but their music was still full of purpose. one thing is what people say, and the other thing is how things are. if this sounds paradox - be reminded this was a way of playing tactics, with outsiders, with the journalists, the "parent generation", not spilling the beans to those who can't understand.
so should music never be made for enjoyment, and only to fulfill a higher purpose, a higher goal, a higher idea?
i am inclined to say: yes, music should not be enjoyed if it is not following a higher concept, or goal. but that would be dead wrong too, and it would be completely missing the point.
because any enjoyment, and fulfillment, any pleasure, any celebration, music does gain by a higher purpose. the higher purpose, the idea behind a piece, a song, a track, is what makes it enjoyable - what makes it thrilling, what makes it exciting, wonderful, fantastic. forget the drums, forget the bassline, the vocals, the production - what only matters is the idea behind the piece. and if it's just wood being banged to a wall, or pieces of metal clanged against each other, if the idea is brilliant, the track is brilliant. this is the source of joy, of excitement, of the "fun" of music. what makes it possible to party, to celebrate music. only a higher purpose can make this possible.
if music loses it's connection to higher ideals, to societal, to political, to cultural ideals, to the wellbeing of society and of all humans, than the music loses all pleasure, all excitement too, and becomes dead, dull, empty, boring - as most music is already today - for this very reason.
you can see this in all these chic boring minimal techno and electrohouse parties, boring tracks for boring people, where the only reason people actually waste a lot of money on these clubnights is that they hunt for the last trace of the original anarchism and radicality that techno once posessed in its beginning stage.
so. be sure to not forgot the higher purpose and concept to music. people might have lost it - but that doesn't mean everyone has lost it, and that it could not be brought back, or kept alive.

The Mover - Alien Underground Interview

the infamous and famous interview of The Mover printed in the Praxis, South London-scene related "Alien Underground" magazine.
thanks to "Phuture" for putting it up originally.
enjoy!

Earth – Year 2017

The death of the undercover agents puts cops into dilemma since the murder has eliminated a chain of clues necessary to track down a syndicate that specialises in extreme terror. Charlie X is chosen by Inspector Rob to take up the mission and goes undercover by posing as a ‘’hot’’ gun dealer. Charlie X is introduced to Mover, the leader of the syndicate, and is put through various rigorous tests under surveillance, eventually being accepted into the gang. Attempting to break into the target workshop, MOVER and his gang are ambused by a strong police force. Being unaware of Charlie X’s identity the police shoot him spraying his abdomen and head with a thousand bullets. In the meantime MOVER and his gang succesfully blast their way out of COPTRAP filling a few brains with some hot steel. Welcome to wasteland – meet the MOVER!


AU: Is it true you are making a soundtrack for an expensive sci-fi adventure?
M: Maybe! We have to see how it comes out, I’m half way through that project now and if the production crew is happy with the end result they will use it. That’s all I can tell you.
AU: I presume it has been made in the USA?
M: Yes, but don’t haggle any more, otherwise you know too much!
AU: Do you thrive on anonymity?
M: Well you know I’m a machine, I’m wired up I don’t get good feedback of humans, and anyway, stargazing is for fuckers! I’m roaming the earth and it’s nice and doomy here. The sound of MOVER should speak for itself.
AU: Are you     with darkness?
M: That is something that is quite appealing to me, but not in the superficial way. If you feel it, you take it out on sound. If you have heavy dreams or stifling atmosphere in your environment, if cops are on your case, your head feels heavy and you are in the gutter, you get a feeling out of the experience. MOVER is dark because it’s set in the phuture of mankind. I can’t possibly justify seeing a happy end to this stupid human drama. Darkness is not mystical, it’s your everyday reality.
AU: You also construct as two other identities, ALIEN CHRIST and MESCALINUM UNITED, how do you relate to those?
M: ALIEN CHRIST is more an inspirational piece of music. It goes back to discovering “Art of Stalking”, one of my favorite records, and remixing it to and my head is still on it. My first encounter with that track was very emotional and it got my adrenalin rushing big time. It had ‘phuture’ written all over it and it was something I wanted to listen to after long hours in the studio. To this date I made around 80 remixes of this track and this year we’ll release an album with some new heavy sounds.
AU: Talking about albums MESCALINUM UNITED have one due soon, can you give us a few hints on what to expect?
M: Expect the unexpected! The picture here is getting darker. I made a set of ambient tracks, but to be precise, sick ambient, with Mescalinum sounds taking a new direction. No beats, deeper sound and very sick vibe to it. Imagine surveying earth after nuclear destruction and enjoying what you see, that’s how it feels when you listen to it. The other side is still quite menacing and brutal but I won’t sacrifice myself for style. It’s most important how I feel when I’m programming. It took me a very short time to come up with mesca sound, but it will take ages to improve on it and take it further. In that respect it’s a constant struggle, it’s the hardest project to work on.
AU: If we reflect on different styles of music being made in the past and the present, what would you say influenced you most?
M: Definitly black music, more than anything else. Rap, hip hop, early acid and Detroit style. We used to run a hip hop label in the early eighties, called DOPE ON PLASTIC, but Germany is the last place to make this stuff. You need to be black to make it work, I hate seeing rich little kids with BMW’s pretending they are homeboys. Anyway we stopped DOP, but some hip hop will be released on NO MERCY this year and we’ll see what happens!
AU: What about the European side, industrial, EBM, Kraftwerk etc.?
M: I like certain areas of European music, but I also hate most of it because you get pinned down in the cliche sooner or later. I understand a lot of people think we come from an industrial point of view, which is utter bollocks. Most of the industrial music is crap anyway, I hate it. As far as wankers like Kraftwerk or Can are concerned, I don’t think I really want to know their music. I liked early Belgian sound, Mackenzie, Boccacio raves and I’m trying to recreate some of that feel on COLD RUSH. I tried to look inside myself to find ways for music, and I don’t find it helpful to rely on the past too much, it’s pointless.
AU: I heard you are in love with jungle at the moment?
M: HA! HA! HA ! I’m hooked on it, it’s fucking great. Dark Jungle and heavy drum and bass, to me it sounds totally fresh again, and you don’t hear stuff like this made in Germany or Holland. British drum and bass is unique and is oviously growing again because of that commitment and enthusiasm around it. At the end of the day it’s the ideal party music, free form, uninhibited and very uplifting, something close to pure groove.
AU: Who are the producers / labels that you rate at the moment?
M: Italian music is quite fine, LORY D. is a step forward, Dutch music can be exciting, I like Neophyte and DJ Rob but these days it seems harder and harder to find quality euro hardcore. Most of the dutch music is taking a different direction, happy and midtempo style and a lot of it is very poor, you know it’s maybe better to say commercial. Dutch government is clamping down on big parties at the moment, and it’s not helping one inch, I also picked up on some British stuff, like Reload and Beaumont Hannant, Aphex and just recently I heard some unreleased material from Jason VFM, which we’ll hopefully release on PCP.
AU: What are your three all time favorite pieces of vinyl?
M: X-101 by Underground Resistance, Suburban Knight’s Art of Stalking, and Analogue Bubblebath by Aphex. All three of them are definitive, original, deep and looking forward. I would slot Final Sickness trilogy somewhere in that group. People involved were all looking for their own expression, their own sound and that is a serious contribution to music. If you play those tracks now, they still stand head and shoulders above most of the contemporary rubbish.
AU: Let’s get back to your own music. What are you working on at the moment and when can we expect a new Mover album?
M: PCP are going through a transitional period at the moment, with a lot of new ideas and individuals coming into play, so I have to respect that. We are also starting a couple of new labels, Powerplant, Temple Tunes and Floorfiller are definitly worth a mention, and you can expect a lot more deep dark music from us. New Mover album is almost finished and is looking like a double right now. I’m trying to add finishing touches to it because production and mixing have to be 100% otherwise I don’t put it out. MOVER has got to be the best.
AU: Do you find it difficult to follow up the SICKNESS concept?
M: Ideally not, it was the way I felt at the time, and it concerns certain period of working out what MOVER should sound like. Most of SICKNESS stuff came in one big rush. For a comparison Waves of Life took considerably longer to complete. You have to take care of your feelings and moods at the time; sometimes I wake up and feel MOVER and work on it for hours on end. And that occurs not so often. New material is more controlled, light in some parts but still darker in pressure areas. It rolls on well from FINAL SICKNESS concept, because it opens a new door for me. I don’t want people to have any preconceptions about it either because it spoils the feeling. In the past two years I made over 100 Mover tracks and only 8 are making it on this album, so judge for yourself.
AU: Can you say confidently, you are on the way to another Mover classic?
M: At this point, yes. It wil sound more contemporary than my previous outings and I think that will make it more accessible for a wider audience. So far we’ve had a problem communicating certain ideas and pointing them in the right direction and that left us wondering in rage. Germany itself was hostile to the MOVER concept whilst we got brilliant response from Britain, the States and Italy.
AU: How do you explain that?
M: Britain is cool because the priorities are considered heavily. People are quite seriously into it, regardless of their social status. You get music and dope in a right kind of way. Everybody is into their records and decks and sits down and spends time with it, it’s more of a lifestyle. You are hungry but that record is still spinning. Germany is more of a consumate society supermarket style. CD’s are winning over vinyl and if it’s not on MTV you don’t bother. Music is a fuckin’ commodity, and I don’t see it that way. Music demands involvement and reaction be it in a club or at home. There is no point in going and raving to Gabba if next thing you do in the morning is stick Kylie Minogue in your new flash CD player. Fuck that!
AU: Do you find the make up of post war German society distressing?
M: Totally! Germans are still quite a way from understanding the soul in music. Forget about techno, there’s plenty of it around. What we need is some heart and soul.
AU: Can you tell me more about the PROGRAM 1 comeback?
M: The guys have just arrived from Colombia with a big suitcase and more news from Lil Pepe and T-bone who is seriously ill in hospital in Bogota. Tomorrow we go and finish off our next 12” and make it 15” and hopefully we’re down to some serious business. Just wait for those Program 1 basslines and you won’t be disappointed. This time we’ve used bigger bullets.
AU: Is T-Bone on his death bed?
M: Not as yet! I heard it’s a milder case of some strange South African veneral disease. The problem with T-Bone is he goes poking around his thing too much and he gets punished for it. You can’t make records like that!
AU: Where do you see Planet Core in the year 2000?
M: Bigger, better, bolder, faster and smarter! I want to move to a different location, I’m not happy with living in a city. Frankfurt is OK but quite frankly I wouldn’t mind moving my studio to Barbados or Majorca. At the moment we are going to stay hardcore, make some more dark stuff and get more people involved with our new record labels. ZEKT have a few releases lined up on Powerplant. Ilsa Gold on Cold Rush, we’re doing some stuff with guys from Rotterdam, and hopefully we’ll make a PA appearance at one of the VFM parties in London.
AU: OK, then > see you there!
M: SEE YA!

The Hardcore Backlash

techno in the beginning was dirty. fucked up. dark. a thousand messed out ravers getting wild in the basements, bunkers, warehouses, fields.
it was a big "fuck you" to the dance music of the 80s and 70s. to the luxurious disco of the 70s, or chic "dance" pop tunes of the 80s. where those with the most expensive suits and fashion dominated. where you would not go mental on the dancefloor, but repeat the dancesteps john travolta showed you on TV. where the was a "well behavedness" to the dance activity - not go all out insane and twirl your body around.
the techno crowds largely fit to this. to the anarchy and mayhem, and uprising from below. freaks, anarchists, squatters, working class people, lower classes. the outsiders, the jobless, those who were different, but still hopeful.
there was a huge backlash against this techno and hardcore momentum by the mid 90s. it was decided, techno had to become "chic". be respectable, well-behaved too. "intelligent" techno was pushed in forefront, "elegant" house and dance beats.
the working class and nihilistic roots were forgotten too. now the "luxurious" dorks discovered techno for themselves too, fine, chic, party people, intensively boring, and the middle class, mediocre men and women, intensively boring too. all those who sneered at the dirt and mayhem of techno - and especially at the ravers, the crowds, the hardcore possee - before.
was techno at the beginning a form of class warfare? it is hard to say. but by the mid 90s it had become one, waged by people from the upper and middle classes, to take techno away from the working and outcast classes they despised. and this war was waged quite directly; for example, now they were bouncers who often guarded the clubs and didn't let you in if you not looked like money or at least pretended too.
it is now history, so we have to recall the debates, the emotions, and motions of all these people who despised the former "childishness", "ridiculous" of anarchist techno, of rave, of hardcore - and now demanded chic and conformistic - and utterly boring - "electronic" music. this can still be seen of how many of these, or other people, still think in the same patterns when it cames to early techno and hardcore music. 'how dumb that music was', 'how silly those people looked and danced who loved this music'. as if you wouldn't look ten times as silly with your chic outfit at the minimal techno night, you asshole.
yes, this is history. so, it's time to turn the tide. blast them away. blow the lid off. bring the dirt back to techno music, to hardcore. make it the music of the lower classes - and the freaks - again. we need a different form of techno and hardcore again - full of rebellion, uprising, anarchism. full of nihilism and energy and activity.

The Specialness Of Early Techno

when i started producing music, the early techno and hardcore productions were despised by many people of the newer generation of producers. was the sound not cheesy? weak? technically inferior?
i too had such a mindset, and was at first not much interested in this sound. after all, i had lived through the first "techno explosion" and even then it did not catch much of my interest.
over the years, this changed. i felt a certain attraction to the earliest techno and hardcore productions. there seemed to be something intriguing, special about it. i felt i was about to grow an obsession for this music. a lot of my friends were shocked. why was i going back in the past when seemingly others moved on?
it took me a while - years - to be finally to realise what is so special about early techno.

the cheesy stabs, the dancy vocals in a lot of those tracks put many people down - especially those who come from the rock field. isn't this cheesy dance music? for the last remaining candy ravers?
the point is. no it's not. the earliest techno, at the end of the 80s, and the beginning of the 90s, was simply made, produced in a different way, than most other music at that point, and later. it's all about the effect. the melody, the sound, the samples, in itself are not so important, if they don't reach a certain effect. to get wild on the dancefloor. to trip out. to move. to groove. to drift off. and, most importantly, to feel that energy rush. yes, some melodies might be cheesy, but this is missing the point completely. if the melody can make you rush to the adrenaline, then the effect was succesful, and wether this was done by cheesy methods is not so important at all. this is what makes early techno different from pop music or most other forms of music.
the various elements, structures, the keys, melodies, tunings, harmonics, rhythms, are only secondary. the tunes are made with the effect, the impact they can have, in mind. the impact on the body, and mental.
you have to see through the apparent sounds to realise this.
this also why techno producers easily switched elements over the years, from the 808 to sampled drums to breakbeats and more.
if it makes you dance, it is correct. don't question anything else.

the interesting thing here, is, again, that this is something that is not found in most other genres. it *can* be found; jazz, blues, 60s rock, had a similiar approach. where the elements and structure used is not so important as the effect induced by the music. and, in the last years, i see that this approach is also heavily speeding into other forms of music, even pop.

the other thing, techno, hardcore, the early stuff, is simply some of the best produced music ever. what makes it special, to write it down, could fill a whole book. it is not so much the complexity - early techno was often simplistic - as how they used the limitations of the early equipment, and of the techno method itself. and what they stuffed into the tracks, as ideas, creativity, vision. techno tracks feels so much as a whole, and packed with action. also, they have a quality what i call "seamless" producing. in the best tunes, every basshit, every drum, every stab just fits absolutely perfect and you can find no flaw in the production. again, this is rare in most genres, and again, compares with equally seamless music as the best jazz or blues productions.
i will stop here for now; it is too much to explain and maybe can't be explained. if you are a producer yourself or interested in techno, just listen to the early techno productions over and over, and maybe you can find the genius in these tracks and their productions.

these two things are what make early techno and hardcore stand out, and a lot more. maybe you can find enjoyment in these genres too.

The Techno-Krautrock Connection

eventually i got interested in the way techno was originally created, at the end of the 80s, 90s. what made acid house, early techno, early hardcore so special? to me, it seemed obvious, that the method of production must be connected to this. i realized early techno was quite differently produced from later fully thought-out productions using cubase, or similiar programs, with every elements carefully sequenced and preprogrammed.
techno, in the beginning, had much more or a DIY, quick attitude, lowfi production values, with the focus on improvisation, experimentation.
then i realised that techno, in many senses, was a re-emergence of the krautrock, psychedelic, experimental rock and electronic productions of the hippie, anarchist 60s and 70s.
the set up was similiar was in so many ways: setting up synthesizers, equipment, jamming with them, creating easy sequences, going on from that and becoming more complex, more sophisticated. improvise, put everything together, try out as much as you can. just jam and get into the groove and tune out.
this is was how many of the earliest techno tracks were produced: just adding sequences to bassline and other synthesizers, drum machines and effects, then just jamming with them, turning channels on off and off, playing, letting the music flow.
this is of course extremely alike to the jam session of the 60s musicians. the only difference is the obvious lack of electric guitars, and a lesser focus on traditional singing.
this again is to me one of the things that prove that techno is, as i said, to many parts of recreation of the sounds, ideas and methods of the anarchist 60s.

How I Discovered Planet Core Productions

in 6 parts

1. First Contact

my story with PCP starts back in 1996. i had discovered the sounds of Hardcore Techno just a few months ago. i wanted to know more about this wonderful sound and started to explore the depths of the Internet about it. i soon ran into c8.com which was the electronic focal point of the hard electronic underground at that time, and hosted labels like Bloody Fist, artists like Somatic Responses, and the PCP website. i eagerly devoured the subsites and the information i could find. if i recall correctly they had a lot of previews of PCP tunes up, and i found them interesting, but i wasn't too impressed i must say - yet. then i came into contact with PCP in another way. i bought the compilation "ravers night III", which was put out by ruffneck records i think, in a big store. that was a time when gabber and hardcore techo (at least it's commercial variant) was part ofthe mainstream youth culture and CDs by the likes of Nordcore, Mokum, Industrial Strength were just a few meters away from mainstream rock and pop CDs in stores. back to the compilation. i don't remember if i checked the booklet first or put the CD in the player first. when i read the booklet i noticed the first track of the CD, "Inferno Bros. - Slaves To The Rave", was related to Planet Core Productions. i felt excited, a track of the mysterious underground hardcore scene that so far i only knew from the internet, in my hands on a CD!
when i put on the CD and put on the track, i was completely blown away. there are only a few tracks, maybe 3 or 4 in total, that hit me so hard, so extreme, when i first listened to them. it was like everything i had known about music faded into the past and was replaced by something new. it was a bit like experiencing lying on a beach in a tropical paradise during sunset, being peaceful and happy. so sweet, so exciting, so thrilling, so overwhelming. there was simply so much in this track, so much power, and emotion. needless to say, it was also much more intelligent and complex than most of the more known "gabber" during that time.

2. Checking The Catalogue

It may sound weird, but after my interest in PCP grew, i actually read through the whole catalogue of PCP records and wondered how these records with interesting titles (Cyborg Unknown, Planet Phuture, Reign...) would sound like.

3. The Phuture

after i became a regular visitor to the local store here that sold most of the hardcore vinyls and CDs, i decided that this was my chance to finally check out the PCP sounds more. i bought a CD called "PCP - Phuture". when i listened through the CD, i was actually disappointed. the tracks let me down a bit at that time - they seemed repetive and very minimalistic - quite different from the over-the-top hardcore by Mouse or Burning Lazy Persons that i listened to that time. the only track that stood out for me was MF Skulls by Program 1.
so while PCP was a love at first sight to me, it was not a love at second sight.  but would that change in the future?

4. A New Style

in the meantime the sound of PCP had changed a lot, and they put out records like Purple Moon, XTC Express, Reign - Time Machine, or vinyls on Futureworld and Narcotic Network Recordings. this was stuff i loved again. they all had that dreamy, spacey feel to them, that i adore in music.

5. At Last

then i slowly developed an interest in the older style of PCP too, yet a lot of the early stuff still seemed not that exciting to me - too repetive and simplistic.
then one friday night i was working on music, chatting with other hardcore artists, listening to music, checking websites till the morning. i eventually switched the Nordcore internet radio stream on. they were playing a PCP special. around 6 or 7 am a track came on. i don't know anymore if it was Headshop - Universe or T Bone Castro - Return To Planet E. this track hit me so hard again. when the choirs of the tune came on, i can't describe what i felt then. it was just incredible. bliss.  i now realised there was much more to PCP than i first had noticed, and it would soon become one of my favorite labels.

6. At Party

now i liked most of pcp, yet it seemed to me that tracks like Ace The Space - 9 is a classic and such, even if they were really sweet to me, might have been more powerful in 1992 then now - the beats, the synth, seemed a lot weaker, less impressive than later productions to me. maybe they were too much part of the then ongoing techno movement? this opinion of me soon fell too, though.
it was All-Out Demolition! II, the most succesful party we did then, 300-500 visitors or so (can't count the exact amount since the crowd was linked with another party in a different part of the building).
the party was almost over already, it was early in the morning again, the regular sets of the DJs were finished. Sampler19 started a PCP set, beginning with We Have Arrived and later Turbulence - Whurlstorm, i continued the set and played stuff by T Bone Castro, Marshall Masters and such, the Dance Ecstasy and PCP classics.
when playing this set, in this pitch-black, fog filled basement, on an super loud system, i noticed that they sounded quite different from normally listening to them. they sounded extremely powerful, hard hitting, varied, full of sound - the minimalism and "mainstream techno-ness" i criticed before that, had simply gone.
this was the time i learned to truly appreciate these tracks too.

Tribute to FFM Shadow Orchestra

my appreciation of ffm shadow orchestra runs for a long time now. like most of the acts in my early days of hardcore, i discovered them through the c8.com site in the mid 90s. i remember when i first read the name, i assumed it must be a strange rap group from frankfurt. i soon learned better, since stevvi (who ran the old pcp website, which was hosted at c8) put up some preview tracks by them. they became some of the first underground hardcore tracks i ever heard, when i was 15 year old, and i instantly liked what i heard. i remember stevvi wrote that marc had send him some white labels, so he doesn't know who wrote these tracks, but he assumed it was the ffm shadow orchestra. since then, and probably before then, the orchestra was always associated with some sort of mystery. fast forward one year, it's 1997 and i'm in the container record store in hamburg. i spotted two new releases that really stood out from most of the rest of the vinyls. the cover art intrigued me, and on the backside there were printed lyrics to the song. that was really something stunning for me, underground hardcore with full vocals and lyrics! i immediately bought the records, without prelistening to them. i think only at home i realised i bought something by the ffm shadow orchestra, because of the weird font they used i couldn't really decipher most of the text at first.
the records were interzone 1 and 2 (the name of the label is a reference to william burroughs and/or the movie naked lunch, by the way), and i instantly fell in love with them. the tracks had such an outerspace feel to them, pure phuture, with long ambient intros that would make one feel as if one is travelling among the stars. over the years i've listened to a lot of futuristic music, but ffm shadow orchestra is still something that stands out with it's vibe, and there is something else to it, not just phuture, or rather, a special brand of phuture sound that no other artist did yet.
here ends the text of my personal story with the ffm shadow orchestra, so i'll talk a bit about the mystery surrounding this act. the first mystery is of course, who are they actually? they have not released on any other label outside of the pcp family, and almost nothing is known about the persons behind this project. needless to say, they seem to never have done any live perfomances either. in fact, for a long time, i thought it is just another strange project done by marc, miro or thorsten, or all three together, using a different name. it seems though that the people behind the orchestra have released under other names on pcp too, using aliases such as "terrorists" or "3 from i.o.".
another mystery is the nature of their releases themselves. around 2000 i noticed a release called "ffm shadow orchestra - radio inferno" in the phuture-rave record store on the web. it's a full album, only released on cd-r. who released it? why didn't it get a proper release? is it really the same guys - it sounds much different to their earlier releases? one might never know.
the biggest strange thing is maybe that the ffm shadow orchestra is still much less known than other acts of their era, or especially other pcp acts. they had a lot more going on than a lot of acts - fully lyricized tracks, big productions, good ideas (on one of their records all four tracks are an hommege to the classic movie "killing zoé", for example). they really would have deserved much more recognition, in my opinion.

The Story Of PCP

to write down the whole story, history and context of pcp would demand a whole book, or rather, a whole library of books. so excuse that i will only focus on parts and occassions of the pcp history, and can not adress the whole - yet.
about the beginnings of pcp, not that much is known. the two key creaters seem to have been marc acardipane and thorsten lambert. acardipane played guitar before that, and had various rap projects. the first outing of pcp was, aptly named, a release by mescalinum united called into mekong center. this is still far, but not that far, from the sound pcp got later quite famous for. we find some sort of a cross between house, electro and EBM sounds, but also plenty of new ideas. this was 1989. the end of 1989. the decade ended. the pcp saga had begun.
of early influences is not much known, or rather, not much specific. in the alien underground interview marc acardipane denounced the industrial EBM influence of the likes of front 242, yet in another interview he says this, together with detroit techno, was the starting point for his own sound. this confusing stance on things runs through the history of pcp. they are not known to play their cards too much in the open, for good reasons.
PCP continued, and with the movers first outing, frontal sickness volume 1, and mescalinum united's reflections of 2017 ep, two of the most important records in the history of techno, in the history of hardcore, and in the history of music have been made. much has been said about these tracks elsewhere; i will leave it at this short notice right now.

in these early days, it was the height of the first techno wave, in germany, europe and britain. PCP thrived in this milieu, and as far as i know, were very welcome by this scene. we got plenty of interviews in early german and other techno fanzines, they played a lot of parties, even at the biggest rave than, the mayday rave by low spirit. hardcore and gabber was also a new thing; and pcp paved the way for that sound; they were celebrated by the dutch and belgium gabber crowd, and were legends even back then. but, even at that point, acardipane in interviews expressed the motion that, especially in germany, they were ignored in light of other DJs and producers of the techno scene who made it "big".

indeed, the techno landscape was changing. techno was no longer one sound, one family, one unity. a DJ wouldn't play all styles in one set anymore. the scene fragmented into further subscenes, such as breakbeat, jungle, "intelligent", hardtrance, and hardcore and gabber. the DJs and producers adopted, and went with the flow, instead of beating the system. pcp did not. they stayed true to their core. they kept putting out hardcore sounds en masse. for the german techno scene, this became problematic. hardcore was now seen as "childish", not being liked by the now stucked up crowd who demanded "intelligent" and "minimal" sounds.
this explained why, while other DJs that started together with PCP, rose to fame, mainstream fame, pcp did not, and instead became more obscure.

pcp did not only stay with their original sound, they expanded it, explored other venues. i think any type of dance and electronic music must have been covered by their catalogue. they ventured into krautrock, goa, jungle, EBM, speedcore, abstract; anything: you named it, they did it.

in this "second" period, in my opinion, fall some of the most interesting releases of pcp fall, as the outings by miro, or the movers countdown trax EP, or the jupiter pulse of mescalinum united.

in an interview, miro expressed disappointment that seemingly everyone had forgotton about pcp. and this was largely the case; pcp was more of a "secret hint", passed on by an elite circle. the parties were usually headlined by someone else.

yet, the tide for pcp changed once again. or rather, it ended, in a true phoenix style. pcp ceased to exist by the year 1997. but this was also the time when, as a live act, or marc acardipane as a DJ, under various names, such as marshall masters or kotzaak, they were increasingly booked at the "big" parties again, especially in holland and belgium. they released a marshall masters album which sold weld. "i like it loud" became a hit for the first time. acardipane records was started, which later led into resident e records.

so, the recognition was finally there. recognition by a larger audience.

after the 2000s, things changed even more. by the breakcore, the techno, the experimental hardcore crowed, pcp was no longer seen as "childish" finally anymore (yes, there was a time when you were ridiculed by self-appointed elitists, when you stated that you listened to pcp.)
pcp was rediscoverd again, its mysterios, excellent sound came into the open again.
and, a new generation of artists, of listeners, of human beings, discovered pcp newly again.

The Beginning Of Doomcore

the story, the beginning of doomcore is synonymous with one label. at the beginning, everything doomcore was PCP, and PCP was everything doomcore. they created the whole genre. they started it. listen to the labels at that time; you will see there is not much that actually sounds similiar to the things pcp pulled off back then.
sure, there were other tracks to be found; and you might find even further; "the aftermath" on the adrenalin records EP; or some of the sound of rome works, to name some. but, as i said, at first doomcore was virtually the same as PCP.
PCP set the sound with some of their best records; with the cold rush records. with the mover outings. with the cold metallic sound of mescalinum united. techno, at its beginning, was dark. but pcp put the darkness even further. they had the idea to create technotic, or pounding, 4/4 drums with lush, sweeping synth pads, rave signals, dark choir outings. in a time when everyone seemed to focus mostly on the grove and beat of techno, PCP shifted the focus to the emotion, the setting of a track.
so that was it. the doomcore formula had been found. the dark dancefloor came into existence. and from that, the sound evolved even more.
PCP's outings became more intricate as time moved on, too. the reduced sound of the first mover EP later gave way to the complex melodic systems and spacious sounds of some of miro's work (the purple moon, the xtc express...).
at this point of history, doomcore was more or less a rarity. there were dedicated doomcore fans and doom supporters, but they were few. the core group was members of the dutch-influenced gabber sounds, oldschool techno heads who had "grown up" (at least technowise) with pcp, and the experimental underground scenes of techno, in the web surrounding the c8 collective, which to a large part was composed of PCP fans (that scene later gave rises to scenes such as breakcore or frenchcore).
that there was only one real label (or rather, label family) for doomcore didn't help with the spread of doomcore, of course. this changed by the mid 90s. other labels dedicated to the doomcore sound came into being. the most important were the crossbones tree of label, and fifth era. smaller labels and projects arose too, such as black blood and his frontline of sound label (still highly underrated), and even more obscure labels.

skip to the present. the situation couldn't be better for doomcore. doomcore is on the rise, and finally getting recognition and appreciation by people outside the small doomcore circle too. now we have whole events dedicated to doomcore with several acts (an impossibility in the 90s), and the doomcore scene seems to grow.
while this also leads to the danger of a commercialisation of sound, i think it will be a long while till this happens, and we still have plenty of time to enjoy the new doomcore outings. especially interesting to me are the large number of producers who are now interested in the doomcore sound and make great creations, on the internet and elsewhere.
the times are good for doomcore. let's enjoy them.

PCP - Rare And Unreleased Projcts

a look at rare, obscure, exotic projects of the PCP crew.

Jack Lucifer Full Length Album

the second Kotzaak Compilation, From the Deepest Depths, features 3 tracks by jack lucifer (and 1 hidden track),
that were supposed to be of a full length jack lucifer album release, that is announced to be upcoming.
they are in the later style picked up by jack lucifer, not the early kotzaak style, but his blend of death metal
and electronic equipment. the name of the album was supposed to be "contaminated black planet".
in a later interview he said, this album was finished, but never released. he doesn't want to release it so far,
unless he has re-recorded all the tracks again.

See Ya In 2017

See Ya in 2017 was a different version of what was later the Frankfurt Trax 3 Album. it exists only as a
white label testpressing. it has almost the same tracklisting as the frankfurt trax album - but it has three
extra tracks, which are not released elswhere. one is a techno track, one in white breaks style, and one in 303
nation style (probably done by them?).

Unreleased 1993 Mover Demotape

a tape marc acardipane made in 1993. not much about this is known. the tracks are in mover style, but could also
be tracks supposed to be put our under other monikers of acardipane (nasty django, ace the space?).

The Praxis Tape

a rumor from the internet, that the "track 2" put out on the praxis CD compilation paraphysical cybertronics was part of a tape with much more tracks (thus the name "track 2") by the mover.

The Live Double CD

in the early years, the pcp liveact often didn't play pre-existing tracks, but did special live tracks, that were often improvised live. almost nothing of this surfaced later. there seems to be a split between normal tracks, that were put out on vinyl and CD, and the pcp live stuff, which was just for the liveacts. in an interview acardipane talks about a planned PCP live double CD with this material, but it never surfaced.

The Mescalinum United Ambient Album

in the famous alien underground interview, marc acardipane mentions having finished a mecalinum united album of twisted dark ambient tracks. it never came to light. could it be that later ambient releases (1987 metamorphosis, jupiter pulse) were originally part of this album?

Tomorrowland Recordings

this, and i think other labels, were mentioned in an old pcp feature in a magazine. these labels were planned, but never came to existance. one can only wonder what sound wouldve been put out on them.

the PCP DVD

around 2004, marc acardipane announced on the planet core forum, that he had rediscovered masters of plenty of unreleased tracks he done under monikers such as alien christ, ace the space. he said he wants to put them out on a big DVD, complete with unreleased video and live footage.
again, this never came to light.
the only thing that surfaced was the PCP mayday 1993 live video, which was planned to be released on this DVD.

Sonic Threads

it is interesting to note there is seemingly a sonic thread, in terms of content, message, philosophy in the music of the last decades; and this thread even continues along the seemingly rifts in music; the breaks between declining and new genres, and creates a bit of a whole connection.
60s rock, hippie, countercultural revolt grew stale in the 70s; i think this also shows in their music, and i think "the wall" by pink floyd is a good example of this. it paints a complete bleak, depressing hopeless picture. take a look of the lyrics of its song, "Another Brick In The Wall Part 3"

I don't need no arms around me
And I dont need no drugs to calm me.
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don't think I need anything at all.
No! Don't think I'll need anything at all.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all you were all just bricks in the wall.

the ending point. all is hopeless. how to go on from this? this was the ending of the first rock period that originated in the 60s. yet, something new was beginning. the punk explosion. and, lyricwise, and in their philosophy, they actually went on from this. okay, so everything is shit. everything is hopeless. but hey, let's have fun with that. we got decay? give us more decay. gives us anarchy, nihilism. "there is no future on in englands dreaming". so get on the floor and get wild to the guitars.
so, even though punk wanted to be a total break from 60s and 70s rock, which they saw as "hippie" music, in content, they went on from it (and transcended it). this was likely not a conciousness decision - but it is interesting, to find indications for this thing.

a second example is the acid house and techno explosion, which came at a point when "indie" and genres as shoegaze dominated the subcultures.
punk had given way to postpunk, new wave and indie bands. while they had their cheerful moments too, they were also in most cases considerably bleak in their lyrical and sonic content.
yet, at the end (but also from the beginning), in their content, they reached a strange form of transcendence. okay, everything is bleak, everything is hopeless. but if you realise this, if you give in, if you see that all is in vain, you reach some point of exalted feeling of freedom. give up the world and the world won't faze you anymore. yes, it all was in vain, but it doesnt matter. it doesn't reach you.
this not only was the end of postpunk, or a certain grey worldview; it was also the farthest deconstruction of the modern worldview in general, with its ideas, morals and values, that had lost its meaning for its youth and discontent.
now, the interesting thing, is that techno and rave exactly pick up at that point, in their mindset and spectrum of ideas. postpunk led to the point that all in the world was meaningless. so rave tried to create something that was outside the common and of meaning again. techno in its ideology, at the beginning at least, was very unwordly. go into ecstasy, into trance, "higher states of consciousness", into introspection and bliss. also, the issues of everyday experience were negated to an extreme point: we don't care about the political systems anymore, about cold wars, nuclear arms, all the bleak and disappointing issues in this world: let's dance, have fun, enjoy your life, relax and be happy.

so, techno originated from the meaningless, and set out to create meaning again. inevitably, the ecstasy and exaltation of rave grew stale about a decade later too, again. but it is interesting to see this ongoing sonic thread; and it is to wonder, what will be the next developement, the next movement?

Music Is Dead - Long Live Music!

for the last years, i've becoming more and more interested in a certain kind of music. sometimes, it's the only thing that interests me in music. i am not alone in my preference; i guess a million people discovered this special form of music, and enjoy it and crave to hear more. the problem is, this form of music has no name.
and, even its most dedicated listeners, might not even know that this kind of music does exist at all.
what am i talking about?
well, in western music, especially in the 20th century, there has always been the attempt to break out of the framework of music. especially in academic and avantgarde music. it has reached a point where it's not easy to go on from; we have had music of pure noise, random sounds, or silence - how more extreme can you get? how more rules can you bend? how can you progress from that, and create something wholly new?
it is easy. just abandon music altogether. but still make music. for music is dead - but long live music!
what do i mean with that? let me tell you the history of how i discovered this "kind of music". it arose out of chat sessions i had with some of my friends; it was, for us, the days of hardcore techno; but we had grown intensively bored with this genre. so we send ourselves suggestions for other kinds of music, bands, songs, that one should listen to. this was from all other the map; rock, ballads, 60s, 90s, classic, all mixed up. what i noticed after a while, was, that style was not so important at all. in each genre, there were songs that were special and stood out. but it was not easy to say what was special or different. take 60s music for example; some songs of it shine bright, and are different from the efforts of their contemporary bands. yet, the use the same set up of instruments, singing style etc. where is the difference?
it took me a while to realise what was going on.
they simply had a quality, that was not just in the set up of instruments, in the melodic key they used, i.e. in none of the musical and sonic categories. their brilliance was above the music, and its framework.
there was just something that stood out, was different, which could not be explained in musical or sonic terms or qualities.
this doesn't mean, of course, that there was something else, that was not music, to their songs; the instruments, singing, melody, transported this brilliance; but it also transcended it.
there is a quality of music that can not be explained by rhythms, chords, lyrics, pace, keys, harmonies, song structure and so on. it transcends music. it is something different to the very structure of a song or piece of music.
it expresses something, but it does so in its own way, in a special way.
say, you have the traditional setup: guitar, bass, drums etc. you could use them to create songs that are similiar to other music in that style; or you could create special songs, which transcend this setting; which are unique, and can not be attributed to the use, or the way, structure, form it is used, of these instruments. it is something of its own, which is outside the structure, outside the form, outside the instruments.
there can be something else to music, which can not be easily explained. some songs, some artists, just 'have' it, and others don't. in musical terms, it could not be written down what this is - but it is there, and people recognize it, as many agree on certain songs, which have this specialness, this quality.
let us look at it another way to show this:
a musician has a certain idea for a song. now, with this theory on mind, the musical framework or sound is not important. he wants to write a deep, philosophical song. he could use rock for this. or techno. or folk. or a classical setting. he could write a bassline, drum and percussion only 'dance' song or an acoustic guiter folk song. yet, his message would still be the same. the point of his music would be the same, regardless of the method. because the method, the structure of music have been overcome. it is not in the music and the structure anymore. it is outside of it.
this is a break from the past, where certain attributes, qualites, intentions were attributed to genres such as rock, pop, dance. etc
for music is dead - and long live music!

this, then, brings us back to the beginning. what is the next step? the next avantgarde? how more radical can you get? it is easy - deny music altogether. deny anything that is associated with music - yet still do music. just completely ignore the framework. make a folk song, make a dance song, an experimental or 'avantgarde' song - but use it to express something that is not in the music itself. that is not in dance or avantgarde. leave music behind, use it as a tool for a message - and still use music to transport it.

again, it should be said that, in the end, there is not something else in the songs than its structure and elements - there is bass and guitar and synth and percussion, and anything else, but not something without it. yet, how they are used, in these special songs, they transcend this. they create something which cannot be explained in the forms of their use.

lately, i've come back to the idea, that the musical framework should not be totally discarded, after all. maybe there are qualites in certain rhythms, sounds, that are important too, and have an important quality, and content of their own too. yet, the i think the general idea of this still holds true.

music is dead - long live music!

The 70s 80s 90s Continuum - Music

i think there can be a kind of connection - maybe meta-connection - drawn, from the underground and widespread music of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
i think each decade can be drawn to a kind of focal point in music, in expression and intention, or maybe effect.
the decades are not clearly drawn; (in this text) 70s will refer to the music of mid to late 60s to late 70s, 80s from late 70s to late 80s, and 90s from late 80s to mid 90s. as you can see, i'm more about the sonic epochs than the actual decades and years.
i think, the best, and most refined productions of these epochs, generate a certain ecstasy, a feeling of ecstasy, an acting of ecstasy, under the right circumstances, in the listener. and these are very equal to each other, but also quite different, depending of the point of view.

70s music is about the ecstasy of the mind. the krautrock and progrock, psychedelic experiments of that era, made people zone out, trip out, go off in their minds. it's about stimulating the mind, the intellect. with it's complex rhythms, production. the lyrical themes that deal in deep mysteries and pondering. music that is food for your mind - or, as the doormouse said, "feed your head".

90s music is about the ecstasy of the body. dance, dance, dance, while the record spins. techno, rave, hardcore, acid, dance music in general, breakbeat, jungle, breakcore, gabber. made your feet move fasts, your body twirl and shock, until you again zone out, but this time because of the frantic dancing, which is remniscent of tribal dancing, which, in those times were used to reach a state of ecstasy too. your body gets ecstatic, and your start to shiver, and shake, and drift off into a natural high.

80s music seemingly lacks the ecstatic focus of this sonic continuum. yet i think a method of ecstasy can be found here, too. the ecstasy of the heart.
the lush, melancholic sounds that drown you into their emotions, when sorrow and happiness join at the horizon of the emotional set. postpunk, punk, gothic, new wave. with its repetive rhythms and overdose of reverbation while creating synthesized waves of sound, it too makes you trip away, get lost in the sound, reach a pleasurable high.
the repitive vocals with an overdose of delay at the end of some new wave or postpunk songs at that era echo this effect.

this is far from being too exact, or sharply defined. of course 70s music had it's moments of body movements too (actually quite a lot), techno also feeds the mind, and postpunk is intelligent and 'dancable' too. this text doesn't aim to tell something too in a too clearly defined way.

yet it is interesting, to assume these focal points are there, and to explore these connections, and similarities of music, in those different epochs, and in their own epoch.

and, of course, it is due, to go into ecstasy oneself - again.

Revolution Or Interest

i have had it with mediocre art being defended; with claims that art shouldn't meddle in politics; that art should be seen on its own, not being associated with social issues; and not other issues either; i've had it with talentless artists praising their meaningless, bullshit art, abusing the rightful idea of "freedom of artistic expression" - yes artistic expression should not be quenched - but i retain my freedom to call your art boring if it is boring.
let's get rid of all that postmodern, substanceless art, that is completely generic, without goal, aim or purpose, all in the name of being "pure art", free from the seemingly drag of politics or cultural issues. yes, pure art might indeed exist or be viable - but your art isn't, it is not pure, it is dirt.
i propose the following: art should be revolutionary again. anarchistic. anticapitalistic. subversive. rebellious. against the status quo. for a free, just society. for ecstasy. or, if it is not, willingly - as i said, i value the freedom of the artist, he or she can of course be free of politics (although this might be a bit of a hard task, as everything is inherently political) - then at least have an interesting idea, concept, purpose with your art. something that is new, well-thought out, beautiful, groundbreaking, that was not there before. revolution or interest - that should be the claim. revolution or bust. if you don't want to be revolutionary in politics - at least be a revolutionary in mind. bring me something that stimulates my mind. that gives people new thoughts. but don't bore me with your generic art that has no purpose or substance, that wants to achieve nothing at all (there is indeed a way this could work - but this would have its place in another text), that sets not out to conquer gold, to reach out for the exciting.
be revolutionary. for a revolution of the mind. of society. but best - for both.

Anarchy and Extacy

the system, society, capitalist civilization, dulls our minds; our senses; our bodies. the everyday oppresion by police, surveillance, capitalist factories, are a thousand times surmounted by the oppression of our minds and thoughts. society leaves us with only a small pile of dust of joys and enthuasim still available for us; boring reality tv shows; shopping for overpriced shoes; all the small and large, but false, attraction of all kinds of luxury items.
there is so much more in life. there should be so much more. all these adventures that could happen. all these journeys one could begin. all these joys, excitement, satisfiction that is out there, that waits to be discovered.

the sweet, sweet tears of ecstasy.

there is so much joy and pure bliss one can experience in this life. i feel there is no limit on happiness. you can always surpass it. yet capitalism bores us with the "everyday life" we are locked in. yes, the institutions of the state have to be questioned. those of the capital. those of other forms of oppression. but we mustn't forget the other struggle too, the struggle for adventure, for the fantastic. we need to pave a way for ecstacy. for a true anarchy, an anarchy of the wondrous, of the brilliant.

The Story Of Fischkopf

fischkopf first caught my awareness when it was mentioned on the old DHR website ca. 1996 on the haywire tree of sites. they wrote, about DHR, labels with 'similiar' had sprung up in other cities as berlin, for example fischkopf in hamburg. it was not long ago that i discovered the hardcore / experimental world, and was completely in love in it, so i was pretty excited; a label from that scene, with that sound, here in hamburg, where i live? i immediately tried to find out more, and got to know fischkopf records operated from a store here in hamburg called container records, for records and CDs of all kinds techno; i think they had one of the largest sections for hardcore only in europe, at least this side of rotterdam. multipara's label discographies webpage - he had one area solely for fischkopf - provided me with further information.<br />
but now, let's cut the introduction, and get to the basics.<br />
fischkopf was started in 1994 by a group of people, including the operator of container records, martin, and people such as DJ Raid. the first release was done by cybermouse. in an interview it was stated, that cybermouse caught the interest of the fischkopf crew as he was known for his eclectic taste in music in the container record store. this resulted in fisch 1 - cybermouse - surprise attack. the tracks on this release were done on an amiga 500, and actually first released in a diskmag called neurowaver, before they found their way on this fine 12".<br />
the follow up was christoph de babalon's "love under will" EP. these two releases already set the way of what was to come, with their exotic, experimental approach to music that was not easily found elsewhere.<br />
after the fourth release, the old crew disbanded. DJ Raid and others set out to create their own label (with others), Cross Fade Entertainment. the first release on the, "methods of mutilation", by somatic responses, was actually the first somatic responses EP also. it had originally planned to be released on fischkopf. also planned, but scrapped, was a fischkopf release by alec empire.<br />
gerhard storz, called hardy, now took over the business of running fischkopf. the first release under his hands was "shortage of oxygen" by eradicator aka patric catani, one of the masterminds of the experimental and digital hardcore scene back then. what followed were releases by monoloop and lasse steen under the name of p.server, which, with their spaced out jungle and hard acid madness, showed that fischkopf could not be pinned down to one style. in this early period of fischkopf falls also the first outing by one of the most celebrated persons in experimental hardcore: joerg buchholz aka taciturne. with this release, "potpourri" EP, he also had the track which is probably the only one known to gabberists by this label; "der toten". it became a sort of "rave anthem", played on many a gabber party, and is, according to my knowledge, the best selling record of this label.<br />
it also sometimes fetches wondrous prices on the discogs page to sell records.<br />
cue several other later releases, and we arrive at fisch 12, "6 fragmente in der chronologie des wahnsinns". named after an independent movie, "71 fragmente einer chronologie des zufalls", it features hard hitting sonic experiments that were unseen at that point in history. you can find a more lenghty and conclusive review of this record on my blog. let's just add, that is also known to fetch wondrous bids of money on discogs.<br />
<br />
by now it should be noted, that at that point, fischkopf had become a sort of phenomen. the "normal" hardcore scene more or less chosed to ignore most of its releases. hardy, in an interview for signal zero said, that it was actually one of his intentions, to make music that was outside the hardcore scene at that point, what he called the pcp and nordcore crowd.<br />
so, fischkopf was actually much less known as many of its contemporary labels which sometimes even managed to drop compilations with their stuff in supermarkets and mainstream stores (hey, it was the hardcore heyday back then).<br />
yet, to a smaller group of people, fischkopf was already known as being the source for brilliant, exquisite hardcore creations and sonic experimentation. so fischkopf managed to pierced many a subculture with its sound.<br />
it is only now, it seems, that fischkopf seems to finally get wider recognition (although slowly growing), by the possibilites of the internet - or is it fading into total obscurity? only time will tell.<br />
<br />
let's get on.<br />
fisch 14 saw the first and only album by eradicator. tonal assault between 4/4 madness and an industrial record collection can be found here. catani actually got annoyed by the label, as they used a self-made artwork for this, instead of his own cover design.<br />
<br />
in this middle period of fischkopf - we are in 1996 - three more important names appear on fischkopf. nawoto suzuki aka burning lazy persons, and the michelsen sisters, no name and auto-psy.<br />
lenghty reviews are due elsewhere - let's just say i consider these releases to be amongst the most important at this point of hard electronic music.<br />
<br />
fisch 20 had amiga shock force, with an aptly named assault of "psycore kids vs rave fascists."<br />
<br />
fisch 23 saw the master release of fischkopf. a compilation with its acts and related artists. everyone always was about the vinyl version; but, according to me, better get the 2xCD, as some of the best tracks are CD only.<br />
again, not the time for a lenghty review, but it is the outing of some of the best artists at that date with some of their best tracks, and spans from breakcore to acidtechno, from all-out noisecore to the most calm ambient.<br />
<br />
fisch 24 saw a release by EPC, whose items are the subject of a collectors hunt these days.<br />
after that - it was the end. why and how fischkopf ended is not clear. did hardy fell out with the container records crew? or didn't fischkopf generate enough attention and a clear balance, in the end?<br />
no matter what it was, the shock hit the fischkopf supporters hard.<br />
<br />
we're in 1997 now. by the fourth quarter of 1998, a white label suddenly appeared, followed by a regular release.<br />
fisch 25 by mathey olivers. excellent french hardcore with surreal ideas can be found here.<br />
apparenly fischkopf was due to a relaunch? but just as it appeared again so fast, it faded away again - a shame.<br />
the last outing was the white label of fisch 26, of which only a few test pressings seemingly existed. later, it was found out that it was done by cybermouse, who has also done fisch 1 - a nice and worthy ending for this great label.<br />
<br />
this text only covers a fragment of information (or of "wahnsinn"?) about this underrated, appreciated, fantastic, groundbreaking label. much more is to be found out. it is up to you to find out more - or wait for more information to appear.<br />
<br />
further information: <a href="http://www.discogs.com/label/4356-Fischkopf-Hamburg">http://www.discogs.com/label/4356-Fischkopf-Hamburg</a>

Photon Collisions Curated By Somatic Responses - A Review And A Story

generally, there is much talk about records being life-changing. but, let's face it, in most cases it can hardly be called that. yet the demo tape somatic responses send me in 1998 really was that for me - life-changing.
i had come into contact with SR on the biophilia mailing list (anyone remembers what an electronic mailing list is?) which was one of the pinpoints for several hard and experimental producers in those days (the result later was the biophilia allstars LP). young me emailed somatic responses in a bout of youth and asked if they would be possibly interested in a demo CD-R by me. to my suprise they not only replied, but also offered to send me one of their demos in return. this was a moment of awe for me; some of my sonic heros send me, some bored weird-out teenager, some of their stuff! okay, the mail was sent, it arrived here. i put the tape in the recorder. and i was blasted away. the very second the synths of "umbrella" come on, i was not in this world anymore. it was as if life started to curve and twist and change. i felt that everything i knew about music and art moved away from me. *this* was art. this was the music i had always been looking for. this took sounds to a whole different level.

i became an avid fan of SR then and i tried to hype them whenever i could, much to the annoyance of my friends in the hardcore milieu, which couldn't understand my enthusiasm for this act. didn't they divert from 4/4 rhythms (major sin)? didn't they not use guitar samples and shoutings (another sin)? and so on.
they were picking up praise by a fast pace already back then. yet their music stood out from the other acts. it seemed that somehow, that it still felt uncanny to a lot of people.

so, by this story, you can imagine i felt well when SR asked me to contribute a track to their "photon collisions" compilation. i felt even better when i listened to it. now, about 15 years after i first fell in affection with this musical act, i listened to various dozens of other producers, who seemingly feel similiar, and chosed a style with an inspiration of this special type of music. the sound really had an impact, and the works of SR resulted in a new generation of artists who follow their roots. seemingly, it is far from being single and uncanny music now. people learned to understand, appreciate, follow this music.
well done!

"Photon Collisons" can be found at https://somaticresponses.bandcamp.com/album/photon-collisions-curated-by-somatic-responses

DIY 2.0

what is often forgotten these days, is, that it was not as easy to become an "artist" as it is today. art, music, was a world of its own; it was almost confusing that musicians belonged to the same human race as everyone. they were stars, idols, far above the common world and common people. it was not something that was "copied" easily. surely, in those decades there were also many kids who tried to become rock'n'roll, or other music stars themselves. but generally, for the general population, trying to pursue a "music career" seemed irrational, far away from the serious occupations one should dedicate oneself too. you were either born a musician - or you were not.
punk was one of the first biggest challenges to this. everyone could become a punk musician. this is one chord, this is a second - now start your own punkband. it was not a "specialist" "occupation" you had to learn lengthy.
kids could do what they want, express themselves musically - and became "stars" (or anti-stars) in the new scene.
with techno, the change was even more drastic. people, with somewhat of a lack of social contact, would buy a second hand sampler, and a few months later play in front of thousands at a people at a rave, and punching out a new 12" every few weeks.
with techno, *really* everyone could finally become an artist. the aristocracy of music and art, it's elitism and tradionalism, was finally overcome - seemingly.

nowadays, even the techno revolution seems kinda shrunken compared with todays field. today, literally "every joe" is out to be an artist and doing techno, or other music, or other art.
yet there is a bitter taste to it. this "grassroots cultural revolution" was propagated by some of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, and countless of energy by a multitude of persons was invested in it. and now this victory finally came true. yet it does feel like a bitter victory, after all. it doesn't feel like the envisioned utopia after all, were the common people and the societal fringe make wondrous works of art one after another, now that they own the means of cultural production in true "cultural anarchist" style. in fact, a lot of music that is now produced feels bland. and in fact, to many it feels more bland than the music of the times when producing music was only left to "experts" and the elite.

what did go wrong? were our sonically revolutionary ideals too lofty? maybe people are not just interested in music too experimental or groundbreaking after all?
no. what went wrong was something entirely different. what is wrong is that, in the moment, we have only made half the way, for a true cultural anarchist revolution.
the revolution was more or less total in the field of the ability for people to create music themselves. but creation is only one half: what is missing is distribution.

we have the means of production, but the means of distributing music, art, sounds, is still "in the hands of the enemy". a lot of peole will concur: everyone can "distribute" the music himself too now; put it on soundcloud or youtube or any other service. yes, but this is very weak distribution. at the lowest level. a band that plays in a famous TV show or at one of the big festivals will reach *much* more people than those who just upload it to youtube, or soundcloud, or a social network.
yes, there, and there are many, people who got "well known" (remember, we should be anti-stars though - but this would need to be addressed in a different text) by social networks or soundcloud only - but these are a few - in numbers maybe even comparable to the "elitist" artist before the DIY age.
to a large number, using this services, usually yields a very minimal result. some of the most wondrous tracks i heard on soundcloud do not even have listener counts above one hundred.

so, yes, distribution is open to everyone - but the "powerful" distribution to only a few, and the real powerful ones to even fewer people. for example, even the sonic experiments of those who attend an academic setting (students) usually arise more interest than those who "just" put it on a cloud. because academia offers a more powerful distribution to the clouds.

i am hundert percent sure this problem can be overcome, maybe easily, but it would probably a hard, difficult task - at least as difficult to attain as the first DIY revolution i addressed at the beginning of this text.

it is possible to generate a situation where you, as a noone, as the average guy (but not with average mindset, i hope!) can make wondrous, fantastic, adventurous music, and then use a form of distributions that will easily let you reach hundred of thousands, maybe even millions (or billions?) of listeners.
how that would, and could be done, that would demand the place of a different text.

Hardcore Techno, What Was After That, And How Nihilism Got Old

the underground and experimental hardcore techno movement of the 90s was in many senses, to me, the logical end of the era of the modern, of the 20th century so to speak. we had seen uprisings in the 60s, in which many of the so called western "values", ideas, concepts, authorities and oppressive structures and their philosophy were attacked and criticed. the punk era took the nihilism even farther than that. with hardcore techno, the nihilism became total. experimental hardcore techno rejected everything. soundwise, it more or less made no amends to any genres that were around at the time; neither to pop, dance, or alternative rock, or the "intelligent electronica" genres that were around, and in a sense not even to its own techno and hardcore roots, as the funk and groove of techno and house were completely eradicated with the brickstone killer kicks.
i was around at that scene, so i know a lot of people in it where pissed at any scene, at any existing form of music, at all of society and western civilization, all the politics left and right. it was not uncommon to listen only to various forms of hardcore and to lock oneself in on friday nights when everyone else went out to the "club".
the lyrics, label pictures, quotes used in hardcore tracks and their records point to this nihilism. the frenetic use of any sample material available regarding global nuclear warfare; "the missiles take to the skies by the thousand" via brandon spivey "devastation on an unimaginable scale will occur" via surgeon 16 records. "Imagine surveying earth after nuclear destruction and enjoying what you see" via the mover's interview in alien underground.
it was like saying. hell, you people build these missiles. you kept us in fear of war for decades. just go ahead. launch the missiles. let nuclear warheads reign from the sky. it will not be a loss anyway. who cares about humanity.
okay, i could go on with further examples. but i will stop here. so we were sitting here, being over and disattached to anything and everything. now a new generation of idiots arrived, and immediately tried to make us feel old. especially in the breakcore scene. they were basically saying: "okay, everything sucks. but, resistance, rebellion, anarchy is a concept too. an ideology, if you will. so if you cling to it, you are still attached to something that is outdated. we are one stop further in nihilism. we won't even resist or scream anymore."
that's how they wished to appear, unconsciously or consciously. their standpoint was easy to refute and overcome, though, as they embraced mass culture, pop music, society's authorities, things that were used to be rejected. so they were the opposite of being nihilistic, after all. the 60s rebellion might have been old by 2000; but pop culture was even older and more outdated. so the new breakcore crowd actually put themselves into a conservativism of a long gone past. yet the problem was, their point was not so easy to refute after all. if you ought to reject *everything*. shouldn't you reject radical politics and anarchism too?

there are two things to say about this. first, the whole "art for art's sake" stance has one major problem. you can say art should be free of all catogories, and just be made for the sake of art itself, to spread and create art. but, this leaves one category intact. which is that "art" itself is a category. if you really want to remove all categories, you have to take art itself out of the equation too.
as long as you still say you create or enjoy art, you are still trapped in walking in categories.
this might seem very abstract - and it is, but it is entirely possible to remove the category of art itself. for example, in music, you could stop buying records altogether and just listen to car's driving on the streets or birds singing in the forest - "sounds" that are usually not classified as being "music". there is more to say about this, but this is not the room for that.

the second thing is, that, while in theory, all categories and concepts indeed should be removed, this doesn't hold so true in reality, or rather, it is not correct at all, at least not fully correct.
you ought to use categories, concepts, theories, symbols, thoughtsset. base art on them, entangle your art in them, use them as a focus point for your art. and also elsewhere. if you reject all ideology, you should be aware that anarchism can easily become an - oppressive - ideology too, if taken in the wrong direction. yet anarchism is necessary, in order to create a free society.
this sounds paradox, and it is paradox, one of the biggest paradox. but it is also right.
maybe the only thing one could say is: follow concepts, use concepts, ideas, theories; but be also on the guard about them, prepare yourself to reject them, deconstruct, and use this ability often.
this can lead to an interesting outcome.