Review: Alec Empire - DJ 6666 feat. The Illegals

Alec Empire just digitally re-released tracks of his project "DJ 6666 feat. The Illegals" on bandcamp.
Time to dig up a review I had written about their initial album.

DJ 6666 Feat. The Illegals – Death Breathing DHR CD 12

"a very outstanding 'later' release of DHR, taking the breakcore genre to its logical conclusion, and its end:
there are no longer any traces of jungle / breakbeat / 'uk happy hardcore' elements, just unrelentless noise and distortion.
In fact, even the funk and groovy-ness of earlier alec empire releases is slipping away at times, leaving room for cold, hypnotic, repetitive drumloops that crush everything in their paths.
nihilism and bleakness has taking over the breakcore genre.
yet, while the album starts on an ultra dark trip, it gets worse. as the album goes on, the track structures, logic and rationality itself seem to fall apart (or get broken to their core). the later tracks often including little more than just swirling noize, or last and lost fragments of a slowed down, mangled breakbeat.
a journey into decay and mindlessness.
and i love it for that."

Interestingly, there seem to be some bonus tracks on the bandcamp release that were not released before. Haven't fully deciphered this yet (due to changed track names), but they add to the positively disorienting and destructive feel of the originally released tracks!

Get it here:

https://alecempire.bandcamp.com/album/alec-empire-dj6666-feat-the-illegals

Overdog of the Past: Patric C. - The Horrible Plans Of Flex Busterman

After releasing some of the grimiest and grittiest Hardcore, Gabber and Breakcore records, what was next for DHR?
Of course, doing a vintage chiptune album! Quite rational release schedule, isn't it?
No, all irony asides - DHR always was going against genre conventions and expections, so this release made total sense.

It was sometimes claimed to be the first "neo-chiptune release" after the original era; while this likely is not the case, it definitely was one of the earliest.
And it's worth pointing out that it is a quite unique in its style: It's bona fide Chiptune, *but* unlike most contemporary releases, it makes no pretense of sounding exactly like its commodore 64 or amiga 500 precursors.
There are distorted breakbeats, "realistic" percussion samples, drones, synth pads, voices, and other elements that would have sent a real SID chip into mental overload.
So, in a sense, it's actually a futuristic Chiptune variant, a next step onwards, while today, most releases are merely "retro".

Now, all technical details aside, Patric C absolutely kills it on the release.

1. He is seemingly apt at creating captivating and bittersweet melodies (I wouldn't have guessed so, listening to his earlier eradicator and test tube kid total terror music...!)
2. the use of hardcore / breakcore elements adds a mean punch that "glider rider" or "auf wiedersehen monty" might have lacked.
3. there is enough variation, from beatless cinematic sequences to rushing chip-techno mayhem

and, most importantly, it all feels very *real* - one could really imagine this to be the soundtrack to an imaginary video game of the C64 / NES era.
So, in summary, as one track title on this album goes:

"You Made It Perfect!"