Digital Hardcore Recordings

Alec Empire - On Fire Trailer (feat.Natalia Avelon)



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Digital Hardcore Recordings (DHR) is a record label set up in 1994 by Alec Empire. Most of the music is recorded in Berlin, though the label is based in London where the records are mastered and manufactured. The funds for setting up the label came from the payment which Atari Teenage Riot receive for their aborted record deal with the major UK record label Phonogram Records.



The label is acclaimed for its articulation of the Digital Hardcore musical style - "Digital hardcore" is used not only to refer to the record label itself, but to the genre that the artists helped create. Many artists nowadays, not affiliated with the DHR label, would classify themselves as Digital Hardcore, tangible proof of DHR's solid influence on the industrial/electronic scene.



In 1995 DHR releases its first album (they released a 12"'s only in 1994) and a compilation, Harder Than The Rest. Digital Hardcore Festival events are organized in several German cities and the word about DHR spreads to underground scenes in Japan, USA, Australia and Europe. BBC Radio One DJ John Peel hears about DHR and offers Alec Empire and Atari Teenage Riot a "Peel Session". The Suicide Club in Berlin run by a friend of ATR gives a platform to the new bands like EC8OR.



In 1996 DHR make a distribution deal for the US on Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label. DHR tour South East Asia and the US. Atari Teenage Riot goes as support act on tour with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Beck, Rage Against The Machine and Wu-Tang Clan. And in 1997 Atari Teenage Riot, Shizuo and EC8OR together also do a Digital Hardcore tour in the US.



DHR sets up a New York office in 1998 and also sets up the Digital Hardcore Studios in Berlin. The following years Atari Teenage Riot comes under a lot of pressure, amongst others because of member Carl Crack suffering psychosis. By 2000 the Berlin music scene DHR is part of is bleeding dry, Atari Teenage Riot stops touring and recording and no new groups or artists appear on DHR. At the end of the year Alec Empire decides to restructure DHR and starts work on a new album, which emerged as the groundbreaking "Intelligence and Sacrifice" double CD set.



In 2001 Alec Empire does some live shows in the US and is very excited about the growing digital hardcore scene there, releasing a DHR compilation of US these bands called "Dont Fuck With Us!". Later new records emerge from UK artists Motormark and Panic DHH, in addition to Alec's latest punk-rock bombast "Futurist".



As of 2005 the label's influence is still felt, retroactively as much as in the 1990s - DHR are respected for the role they played in the emergence of Breakcore and for pushing the music they believe in.



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