Ec8or – Ec8or

in a sense the first "real" hard electronic release I heard, instead of stuff that was more catered for the MTV and mainstream generation.
And this listening experience defined what was Hardcore, "Breakcore", etc. for me.
It was so different from the routes the various Techno sub-genres had taken. In the mid 90s, for the general population, "Techno" now meant chart topping Hardtrance and Rave - Mark Oh, Marusha, Raver's Nature. And then there was also Gabber, which left most of its gritty and dirty roots behind, and had become a much cleaner sound with pop chanting or samples. Music aimed at the dancefloor, music aimed at "fun".
Ec8or's CD seemed to take a much more serious approach to Hardcore - and to music in general.
But, more importantly. The abovementioned genres had become clichéd. Stylistically extremely limited. If you picked up a commercial hard trance record, you knew what to expect.
For gabber it was the same.

Yet on Ec8or's album, nothing was predefined. Anything could happen at any time. It represented a vast experimental approach to hardcore, electronics, and music.
There was the intro track that combined death metal riffs with hip hop beats, Gina's riot grrl screaming against the establishment, and a sound that resembled a dying transistor radio.
"You'll never find" is a dub downtempo number with no Gabber beats at all, lamenting TV and other culture, against the background of what could be described as the Commodore 64 recording of a pile driver.
"Pick da best one" is a rough and fast gabber track... or is it? There are elements of opera, speed metal, video game culture, natural born killers, and haunting screams... so it is definitely crossing over into all genres.
"Lichterloh" is one of the most peculiar tracks I ever heard... a monotonic-hypnotic excursion, with not much more than a low tempo breakbeat and swirling, meandering outer space sounds in an almost endless loop... but oh so beautiful!
"Ich suche nichts" is a nihilist take on the philosophy of nothingness, until it evolves into punch-to-your-nose Gabber madness...

"We are pissed" is a hardcore punk agit prop song with hyperactive breakbeats.
The best known track from this album is probably "Discriminate Against The Next Fashionsucker You Meet".
It connects various threads of this album together: starting with Gina's haunting screams once more, going into super distorted slow-mo industrial breakcore dub, before picking up a hardcore beat in the latter half of the track, then going into all-out screaming noizecore hell.

but the favorite track for me, back then, as it is now, is "Cheap Drops".
never heard anything like that before, nor will I likely hear anything like it again.
super strange, super bizarre / futuristic flowing ambient sounds... electronic tweaking and chirping, melting with drones and distant rumbling (how could they do this on a mere Amiga 500 computer?)... intermingled with Gina's spoken word part, that is so processed that one can barely understand any words or sentences.
until it all ends in a deafening scream once more.

i never could truly make out what the track is about... to me it gives of the feeling of being in cryosleep on a spaceship far away while the commander is shouting the execution orders...

but either way... audio material for dreams and nightmares.

Great example for ‘s hardcore/breakbeat/gabber/punk or whatever -movement. This album combines everything that stood for DHR and Alec Empire‘s empire of great artists.
Especially for this price it is a must