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Baker's Dozen

Start The Riot! Alec Empire's Favourite Albums
Laurie Tuffrey , June 16th, 2014 07:50

Ahead of Atari Teenage Riot's set at Camden Crawl, the band's founder uses his rundown of favourite albums to issue a clarion call for creativity and puts together a three-hour mix of tracks from his top 13

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Farthest South - Neurim
I just came back from Israel where I was able to record for two days with these guys in Tel Aviv. We also played together at an art festival in Jerusalem.

When they sent me the album to Berlin before the trip, I immediately fell in love with it.  

It came to me at a time when I felt disillusioned with music. Tech giants have turned the internet into this huge machine that destroys creativity, forces artists into a grid, and it's not giving anything back by the way, that is very clear right now.

Of course I am thinking a few years ahead. And hopefully the music community will fight back. Count me in.

The worst is how most bands have reacted to the situation and started becoming these constantly self-promoting jerks. I feel weird because I grew up with using these niche platforms and forums where I met like-minded people, but often I have to remind myself, damn, Twitter is far more visible than the amount of my followers. Will some people mistake personal messages for promotion efforts? 

So while most musicians these days are trying to find a shortcut that brings them a lot of fame and clicks fast, it is so awesome to hear music from people who are not part of that all. And you really hear this in the music!  

Here is a quote from the press release: "At the core of what it means to be Israeli lies the constant awareness of war, alongside the natural instinct to escape it. On the one hand this collective duality demands of us to assemble towards the common effort (even when the rationale behind such an endeavour is questionable) and on the other hand, in the aftermath of battle, often entails physical and mental detachment for purposes of personal cleansing and purification."

Oh, let's check what's happening on Facebook... nothing. What a surprise. Just leave. If you feel like Ian Curtis why do you want to be connected to everyone?