Biography
"Music by Alec Empire, additional music and production by Techno Animal" for this collab released in 1998 on DHR. Produced in London, Winter 1997, their paths first having crossed while contributing illbient/breakbeat tracks to Mille Plateux's Electric Ladyland compilations and collaborating on other remix work the previous year. (2003's follow-up "Mass Destruction" was created by Techno Animal alone (and without the "The" in the name...), ironically this time with a digital hardcore/ cybergrind sound more fitting of Alec).
It was the first more “subdued “ Empire release since his Mille Plateux album series and Jaguar side-projects, especially given the increasingly extreme fare of this period (cf DJ 6666). He later produced tracks in a broadly similar style for Shards Of Pol Pottery with El-P, though this is industrial hip-hop with a harder electro focus than breaks. 1999's Miss Black America would tread similar, though alternately more aggressive and ambient ground.
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(From Matador Records:)
On hearing the mutant hip hop on the first volume of Electric Ladyland released in '95, and noting Force Inc’s Achim Szepanski’s eclectic tastes in music and literature, T.A. felt they found a like-minded spirit. After contributing to several volumes of Force Inc/Mille Plateaux’s Electric Ladyland series, T.A. were invited to join the Mille Plateaux tour of Europe in Winter 1997, alongside Alec Empire, Porter Ricks, DJ Spooky and DJ Rush. 1997’s Techno Animal Vs. Reality was a soundclash/remix album featuring Ui, Tortoise, Porter Ricks, and Alec Empire, whose admiration of T.A.’s headfuck 4/4 guise as The Sidewinder resulted in the joint offering Curse Of The Golden Empire on Alec’s Digital Hardcore label.
The album’s blueprint was recorded during the tour’s down time, but after witnessing T.A’s fever for blasting raw freestyle hip hop in the van, Empire suggested the 4/4 rhythm parts be replaced by funkier overdriven breakbeats. He also had T.A. warp out his rhythm tracks and repeat the maniacal intensity of The Sidewinder’s deconstructional chaos. Significantly, by teaming up with Anti Pop’s Beans (who would again return on 2001's Brotherhood of the Bomb), it was the first time they’d worked with rappers since God worked with New Kingdom and Gunshot, or Godflesh with Sensational on Pain Killer’s Buried Dreams.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.