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Last year kicked off with Alec Empire’s album The Golden Foretaste Of Heaven that was a bit of a shock to the system so this year, before the next album, the uber cool Berliner, is releasing a mini-album and is shortly doing a short UK tour just so we’ve got an idea of what he’s done before and a teasing taster of what we’ve got to look forward to.

The production team of Alec Empire and Nic Endo (called The Hellish Vortex) is based in a studio warehouse space in the centre of Berlin (of course) and we’re told that it is design is reminiscent of Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is where the pair dreamed up their “The Sound of New Berlin” concept that has attracted “an influx of hipster collaborations” of the Raveonettes, the one and only Patrick Wolf (prepare yourself for the video of his ‘Vultures’ single and check out the news for the London date below) and NME favourites Big Pink.

This lot just goes to show how Empire continues to be as musically diverse as he’s ever been having previously “done” jungle, acid, industrial, punk, techno, hip hop, ambient, noise or even straight up rock ‘n roll. This is not the definitely list as this guy is never going to be pigeon holed or controlled.

The CD starts with a track called ‘Control Drug’ with its double meaning, he sings, “The whole world seems to be on a bad drug” and you can’t argue with that; done in punk/NIN/electro style but it’s the title track that’ll scare your OST pants off you with his whispered vocals and icy analogue synths.

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Talking of OST’s, Empire incredibly wrote scores for four films in 2008. One of those was for Richard Wilhelmer’s film The Golden Foretaste of Heaven that was based on Empire’s album. Empire and Endo wrote the music for it and also appeared in the film. It premiered at Austria’s Diagonale Festival. Shivers features the film (read shorter) version of the Cope/Bauhaus/Velvet Underground inspired track ‘1000 Eyes’; the album version is on The Golden Foretaste Of Heaven.

The track ‘If You Live or Die’ sounds like a Bond film title and features Robbie Furze (from The Big Pink) who has some previous himself with film soundtracks as he helped out on UNKLE album End Titles… Stories For Film last year. A Big Pink remix is also on the cards for this one but hard to imagine how you could improve this one except for longer guitar trash at the end al la shoegazing cicra 1985 (see Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi Vol. 3 (Shoegazing 1985 - 2007) for similar).

On the horror theme, ‘Baby Skulls’ is said to be “the perfect representation of The Sound of New Berlin” and is the most club friendly of the set.

Shivers is going to be released on digital format (iTunes has a full live concert as a “bonus” feature) via Eat Your Heart Out Records and will also be available as limited edition special packaged CD. Not only that, but to complement the Past-Present-Future Tour 2009, Empire’s 20 track compilation Bass Terror featuring his early break core rave era tracks (previously only available on vinyl and now released for the first time in digital format).

On the basis of Shivers, Empire and Endo are still ahead of the game and the next album is looking to be one of his best ever.

‘Past-Present-Future’ dates:
24th April Bang Face Weekender, DJ Alec Empire @ Bang Face/ UK/Venetian Snares, 808 State / ends April26th! Pontins, Camber Sands
1st May The Underworld, London (tickets available through www.flagpromotions.com and www.ticketweb.co.uk) NOTE: Patrick Wolf will appear on stage a with Alec Empire for a live performance of his new single, ‘Vultures’.
2nd May Satan’s Hollow, Manchester (tickets available through www.flagpromotions.com and www.ticketweb.co.uk)
3rd May Ivory Blacks, Glasgow (tickets available through www.tickets-scotland.com, www.seetickets.com, www.ticketweb.co.uk)
4th May Studio 24, Edinburgh
5th May The Waterfront, Norwich

Reviewed: Alec Empire - Shivers (Eat Your Heart Out) Cat. No. EYHOCD002 Release date: 25th May 2008
Tracklisting:
1. Shivers
2. Control Drug
3. Vampire State
4. Baby Skulls
5. T.o.T
6. 1000 Eyes (Film Version)
7. If You Live Or Die feat. Robbie Furze (from Big Pink)

Links:
www.alec-empire.com
www.myspace.com/alecempire
www.eat-your-heart-out.com
www.musicfromthebigpink.com
www.myspace.com/musicfromthebigpink
www.myspace.com/eatyourheartoutrecords
1. Tadanobu Asano’s, ‘224466’, Asano is well known from films such as ‘Electric Dragon’, ‘Ichi The Killer’, ‘Mongol’.
2. The highly controversial film Chaos Days, a film based on the German Punk scene in which the lead character shoots a corrupt policeman. The film has literally caused riots when it premiered across Germany and made headlines in the German tabloids. (http://www.eyho-blog.com/2008/10/07/chaostage-premiere-causes-riots-in-hannover-last-weekend/) It will be released in over 50 cinemas in Germany this year. As the 10th anniversary of Atari Teenage Riot’s legendary performance at the May 1st riots is draws near
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ab7Dksqfnw), the police expect more outrage, especially in this current climate of crisis.
3. Russian cult photographer and director Miron Zownir’s, ‘Phantomanie’ with legendary actor from Werner Herzog films, Bruno S. The preview at this year’s Berlinale Festival left the audience shocked and polarised. Zownir and Empire had created an audio and visual nightmare experience, which has been rarely seen on screen, coupled with lush, textured shots of Berlin. The film is currently being overdubbed in English language and can be seen at international film festivals later this year.
www.youtube.com/user/EYHORecords
2001: A Space Odyssey