Alec Empire
1 mix · 1996
From Berlin, Germany
Biography
Alexander Wilke-Steinhof, known as Alec Empire, was born in Charlottenburg, West Berlin, in 1972, and began his career as an agitator and noisemaker in the late 1980s. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he channeled the rebellious sounds of techno, acid house, and punk into a new project, Atari Teenage Riot, founded in 1992 with Hanin Elias and MC Carl Crack as an explicit attack on the neo-Nazi influenced strain of German techno.
After a deal with Phonogram Records collapsed, Empire used the advance money to found Digital Hardcore Recordings in 1994, the label that gave its name to the genre he pioneered, blending breakbeats, punk, and drum and bass at extreme tempos. He's since released a long string of solo albums and remixed more than 70 tracks for artists including Björk, with fans ranging from Trent Reznor to DJ Q-Bert.
