Delete Yourself

Released

Maybe one of the most deliberately obnoxious documents ever recorded, Atari Teenage Riot’s debut delivered anti-fascist, anti-corporate, anti-establishment messages through the format of “digital hardcore,” which mostly sounded like hardcore techno and thrash metal having an ill-advised one-night stand after popping way too many random pills from a Zip-loc baggie. It worked exactly this once. The terrible trio of Alex Empire, Hanin Elias, and MC Carl Crack played off each other in anarchic bursts of noises, stringing together samples and trash-can breakbeats and shouted slogans (“Burn Berlin burn!” “Into the death!” “Kids are united!”) into an admittedly prescient pop political manifesto. Which makes it even funnier that they wound up on major labels and on major movie soundtracks.

Jeff Treppel