I had no idea what he meant. "It's an alias of Alec Empire. He produced an EP using that name, but it never got released". I was all ears at that point, of course. He sent me a link to a webpage - I guess it was either a webpage related to DHR, or even a myspace kind of thing - where Alec had put up 2 tracks from this unreleased release, that could be streamed.
I was totally blown away by this material! I tried to record the stream a bit - but the recording was very lofi. I ended up including a few seconds of that clip in a DJ set I played on the occasion of a Hamburg squat-type all-nighter, in-between "Toccata und Fuge in D-Moll" by Johann Sebastian Bach, crazy speedcore records by French itinerants, and some works by Hamburg's own music maestro, Jörg Buchholz (which, at that point, also happened to be crazy speedcore tracks).
Excuse me for this activity that borderlined on bootleg!
Either way, shortly afterwards, the online stream, the sounds, all info from the release disappeared, like being sucked into a black hole, as if all of this never had happened.
The world turned on... and forgot...?
So I am more than happy that these tracks appear again, with even more material, and as a legit release.
The amount of material would actually fill an album and, according to the info, it was planned as a double 12" vinyl.
So I would say we got a true "lost media" album re-release of digital hardcore sounds, right here, right now.
Now let's ponder a bit on the sounds.
In my opinion, this is *the* hardest electronic release of the 1990s. Period.
I assume these tracks were created in the 1993-1995 date range.
At this point, no other project was faster, or more distorted, more insane.
This is a few years before the term "speedcore" began to appear on record releases. Yet it essentially slams at 200+ bpm from start to finish!
It's a ten out of ten.
This is no numb nut "gabba" record either. Like the info text implies, it's "half way" between the decline of Techno and the rise of Digital Hardcore.
So, even if you are only marginally interested in the history of electronic music, check this one out.
From a cultural perspective, it's weird that this was never released before. It would have made its mark in the rising hardcore techno scene, and thousands of "speedcore chaps" in today's age would look upon it as a classic and collector's item.
Yet, these people might actually be the lost, "drug fueled and substance abused" crowd that this record was created *against * - if we follow the info text that had been put on bandcamp next to the release.
So all of this might make sense after all.
Tracklisting:
Alec Empire - Test Ratte
1. Test Ratte
2. Blast'Em
3. D.A.C.
4. What The Hell
5. Pro Ceeed
6. BunkR
7. Die Psycho-Droge
https://alecempire.bandcamp.com/album/test-ratte