- published: 23 Aug 2009
- views: 105051
Alec Empire (born Alexander Wilke-Steinhof on 2 May 1972 in Charlottenburg, West Berlin) is a German musician who is best known as a founding member of the band Atari Teenage Riot. Also a prolific and distinguished solo artist, producer and DJ, he has released well over a hundred albums, EPs and singles and remixed over seventy tracks for various artists including Björk. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the digital hardcore subgenre and the record labels Digital Hardcore Recordings and Eat Your Heart Out.
Wilke's father was a working-class socialist, himself the son of a radical activist who perished in the Nazi concentration camps of the Second World War. His maternal grandfather, Karl Steinhof, was a self-made millionaire who patented the first domestic hand-knitting appliance during the economic boom in Germany in the 1950s.
Wilke grew up during the Cold War near the Berlin Wall, which he passed every day on his way to school. The frequent sight of patrol guards with guns influenced his outlook on life from an early age. He describes Berlin at the time as: "Probably the most left radical place in Germany in the 70s, terrorists, a lot of demonstrations, and probably the first address to hear the latest American music, because of the radio shows the US soldiers brought to Berlin."
tell them to stop tell them to knee
and I’ll do that too
and then what?
stop breathing ?
swallow my own tongue?
swallow my tongue ...and I’ll do that too
and in the perfect stillness
I suddenly became aware of a different kind of silence coming from elsewhere
kiss out my life
welcome to the state of the beast
to eat and to be eaten
kiss out my life
it feels so bad , so much worse than pain
and it opens in me
it feels so bad
all for your lovin
it feels so bad
like a golden foretaste of heaven
it feels worse
so much worse than pain
and it opens in me
it feels so bad
hold my mind and squeeze it hard
it’s such a pressure that I can’t resist
and then what
you kill me again
and send me right back to the dry lands
you can’t go now
it ain’t over yet
oh let me go
oh please let me go
kiss out my life
welcome to the state of the beast
to eat and to be eaten
kiss out my life
welcome to the state of the beast
to eat and to be eaten
it feels so bad , so much worse than pain
and it opens in me
it feels so bad
all for your lovin
it feels bad
it feels so bad