i don't like everyone being so self conciouss that they liked this band, maybe you translated their sound as the angst of some middle class teenager wanting more presents at christmas but not getting them. they are probably the most vital 90's part of the german post war music/art movement (that i know of), there is a direct line from kraftwork to atr - the idea of a technological future that importantly to german youth was a NEW zone away from facism and the past but also very crucially and especially around the time of atr towards an anti capitalist activism, but one that EMBRACES TECHNOLOGY and doesn't pine for some return to nature (this being an illusion created by technology because there is nothing natural to return to). atr blasted out sonic warfare, what is interesting about people here finding it cheesy is that the music is exploring a techno transcendence of the human which of course would render what we now consider human as "unnatural" and possibly even humourous. or if you are actually so much of a fucking conservative that you are actually by people from another language using english words because you only hear your own thick dialect so much then you are just an idiot. do you actually think they are really trying to sound like you because the way you speak is normal but they can't manage it so it's funny? anyway all this techno stuff is an area mark fisher knows about and can explain more than i can.
most of all atr deserve respect for not participating in the sick illusion of apoliticality that keeps people in their place with their art and the capitalist war machine going. atr actually attacked the fucking cops instead mystifying people into submission to them because OMG IM SO INDIE AND IRONIC AND MY FEELINGS ARE IMPORTANT.
they wanted to NOT ONLY DESTROY THE FUCKING NAZI'S BUT DESTROY ALL CULTURE. they could see thru the fucking liberal illusion that "we" as in our nationality is superior to the nazi's because we wouldn't do such horrible things. as if that very "we" and all the other "we's" haven't always slaughtered far more than hitler ever did.
it is very sad that in exploring these avenues the traps of addiction where always there, as they always are because hedonistic self destruction is always present when you are pushing against the fringes of established social reality. it's also very sad that people see what a band like atr did as just another lifestyle aesthetic they can pick and choose from instead of atually engaging with and exploring what has been said. omg they are so SINCERE and REAL i must hoard this as an object that can die on my cd rack as an accessory to my sterilised ironic detachment from capitalism that in actuality seals my loyalty to it completly but makes me feel so hip. i guess this is why in germany they squat and fight while in america they watch flight of the concords and smoke weed and be ironic about iraq. ok that is a massive fucking generalisation but i don't care. look at greece, the cops kill a teenager and then the anarchists attack the riot police headquarters - then look at britain - the cops murder ian tomlinson and then try to cover up the fact they murdered him by making it out to be a natural death and people just want to live in denial because it threatens their illusions of peace thru consumer slavery. they can't bear to consider the police as anything other than a necessity of reality that keeps some sort of harmonius balance because maybe then they might actually have to face up to the real position of their subjectivity in a completely false reality.
the tactics of anti capitalist activism and the idea of some kind of techno glitch that would destroy the system may be dated now but at the time this was a new avenue that people where exploring, the point now is to learn from the failings of these experiments and re-calibrate the attack. the 90's techno fantasy of a glitch in the system that would turn it against itself and suddenly wake everyone up leading to a mass revolution against the bad guys never happened... it was always far too cosy and excluded the rest of the planet. it's also far too simple althought it IS still possible, but it would potentially be followed by a period of chaos that might only consolidate the domination of the ruling elite even more. there is no single moment when a button is pushed and everyone wakes up, there is only the truth and then layers and layers of denial to fight through, and technology can be used to reinforce that denial, but also to shatter it and this is something that many of the anti capitalist enviromentalists of today need to understand.
the work of people who are anti capitalist but crucially also explicitly anti facist is very important because they are exploring exactly the right area. as has been said in this thread there has always been an element in germany of nazism that didn't disappear after ww2. atr not only rejected the conservative impulse to facism in their culture but also the evil inherent in the forces that defeated it. the rage of this music is itself revolutionary and i suspect anyone who looks back on it as a fun nostalgia trip that they have grown out of never really understood it in the first place and/or has been successfully mystified since.
but it is important to acknowledge the facism that resides in the heart of every successful popstar too. a band like atr could be seen to be merely commodifying and disasterously mischanneling the energy into a form of musical hedonism. but they could also be the vital explosion that opens up the mind of the individual who was mistakenly trying to fight against this kind of rage within herself because she saw it as a personality flaw the way she was programmed to.
i don't see the argument as "oh how can you take this stuff seriously it was never really going to change the world" versus "well it's so honest we should believe in it because it potentially could and should be able to!". both positions are misinterpretations and the latter only ends in disasterous guilt! this very guilt and the split between the individual and the world is i suspect what so much of that horrible fucking indie culture is all about. the questions should be - how effective was this music, what did it accomplish and what can we learn from it. we should see it as one tactical maneuver, one part of a larger process. this and all worthwhile music opens up a way of being in the world that is incompatible with reality and thus threatens it, so sadly its obvious how someone who feels like this may make the mistake and fall into self destruction, but the music keeps alive the feelings that the reality censors, so it has a lot of value.
they should have been blasting atr at the london g20 instead of baking weed cakes and acting like fucking hippies, maybe then we would have found out how to break out of police kettles. i wish all bands today would try to disharmonize the entertainment industry and weren't afraid of fighting against the pigs.
a band like atr is a thousand times more interesting than fucking sonic youth. atr were about smashing the windows and looting and destroying starbucks, while sy make music to sit in them and try to transform the anxiety into smugness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyIVI...eature=related