Alec Empire
Acting
Biography
Alec Empire is a German experimental electronic musician who is best known as a founding member of the band Atari Teenage Riot, as well as a solo artist, producer and DJ. He has released many albums, EPs and singles, some under aliases, and remixed over seventy tracks for various artists including Björk. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the digital hardcore genre, and founded the record labels Digital Hardcore Recordings and Eat Your Heart Out Records.
Known For
An alternate/extended cut, I Dream of Wires: Hardcore Edition is 4 hours in length, custom made for hardcore modular synthesizer and electronic music fanatics. This special, extended edition includes an exclusive, lengthy historical primer, exploring the early development of modular synthesizers from pioneering companies Moog Music Inc. and Buchla and Associates. From there, we find out what's happening now: the phenomenal resurgence of the modular synthesizer exploring the passions, obsessions and dreams of people who have dedicated part of their lives to this esoteric electronic music machine. What started out as a "vintage-revival scene" in the '90s has grown into an underground phenomena with a growing market of modular obsessives craving ever more wild and innovative sounds and interfaces. Today, the modular synthesizer is no longer an esoteric curiosity or even a mere music instrument it is an essential tool for radical new sounds and a bona fide subculture.
I Dream of Wires: Hardcore Edition
After a number of strange disappearances have been reported in the area, Andrew and Jason, two brothers who received a drone for graduation, decide to film around their town to learn more about them, but then become distracted by a new girl in school who lives nearby. The two boys devise a plan to sneak their drone through an open window of her home, only to discover a terrible, dark secret.
Inside That House
An independent documentary film about the phenomenal resurgence of the modular synthesizer — exploring the passions, obsessions and dreams of people who have dedicated part of their lives to this esoteric electronic music machine. Inventors, musicians, and enthusiasts are interviewed about their relationship with the modular synthesizer — for many, it's an all-consuming passion.
I Dream of Wires
Music as a counter-project to a bourgeois existence: Musicians, club and label operators, record store owners and other music lovers talk about how, despite social and economic constraints, they realize their very different, bohemian and sometimes precarious life projects on the sidelines - and always go on. Detailed essays, experience reports, portraits and interviews are dedicated to the alternative music and club scene in Berlin and Hamburg.