Digital Hardcore: The Video's, Drowned In Sound, Oct 2001.
It’s been a while since we were promised a full length 2 hour Digital Hardcore Video, and the burning question is, “is it worth the wait?” Yes and No. For it is titled Digital Hardcore Videos, but it should be called Atari Teenage Riot and maybe a couple of other friends. We get 30 tracks, 23 of which are related to Atari Teenage Riot, be it Nic Endo’s blistering White Heat, Hanin Elias’s Tie me to the wall, Alec Empire’s Low on Ice’, or of course, Atari Teenage Riot as a band, treating us to tracks from all three albums. They start off colourful, anarchic, computer aided and abetted D.I.Y style eyeballfeasts, but by the time the videos have moved into the 60 Second Wipeout era, their popularity had grown, and it shows in the videos, which go very slick indeed. We get only one EC8OR track, Cocaine Ducks, which is a bit of a cop out, seeing as they have produced three cracking albums for the label, two videos by Schizuo, DJ Mowgly and Carl Crack make an appearance, as well as two arty pieces by Phillipp Virus. There are few tracks by the other bands from the dhr stable of old, no Fever, no Patric C, no Bomb 20, no **Cobra Killer, no Subsonic Junkies, but we do get ‘treated’ to Lolita Storm. Maybe there aren't any videos available for these artists, but if there are, it is a crying shame we won't see them. Whinging aside though, when you accept that you have been short changed by way of artistic choice, you can feast upon the 30 video’s here, which are both musically and visually stunning. Turn it up loud, and thank god you’re not watching MTV.
