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Zero Tolerance
(www.ztmag.com)
Terrorizer Magazine
(www.terrorizer.com)
Chain DLK
(www.chaindlk.com)
In celebration of their 100th release, Canadian power-electronics label, DTrash Records, has released this DVD collection. This DVD collection includes 18 music videos of 15 artists and bootleg videos of another 6 artists from the label, including the perversely insane French band, Punish Yourself. And, not to outdo themselves, DTrash Records also celebrates their 100th release by including a track from each of their releases in a jukebox.
DTrash’s 100th release DVD collection is over 5 hours of content. Never mind that every band on this release is from a different corner of the extreme electronics genre—Gabber one minute, Digital hardcore another, and breakcore the next. Watching this DVD is like having my head kicked around and stomped on from Play to Stop, and I like it: I feel like a kid in a candystore—and it’s all mine.
So, if you are craving a nearly unlimited collection of new, aggressive electronic sounds, and four hours of eye-candy to boot, pick this up. There is sure to be something you won’t enjoy, but who fucking cares? DTrash has outdone themselves with their 100th release, which speaks quite a bit for their commitment as a label.
Review by: Shaun Phelps
Connexion Bizarre
(www.connexionbizarre.net)
To celebrate ten years of D-Trash Records and its 100th release, the
label released this special DVD, which includes eighteen full-length
videos, plus a few bootleg live videos and a "D-Trash Jukebox" feature
which allows you to listen to one track from each release, 1 - 99.
So how does D-Trash equate onscreen as opposed to purely aurally? Like
most compilations it's very hit and miss, and there are some surprises
along the way, most noticeably a deep vein of humour (see Hyperdriver's
"Fluffy Bunny Slippers," contrasting sharply with Celebrity Dead's
"Columbine 2003," which seems desperate to come across as worthy and
falls far from it, into the depths of pure tedium). There are also
instances, notably Rabbit Junk's impressive "In Your Head No One Can
Hear You Scream," with its cutesy slow-mo animation, where the video
seems to have been composed whilst listening to an entirely different
track.
There's a lot to get excited about here: for a start, D-Trash is the
home of OxygenFad, whose album I reviewed earlier this year, so I had
already seen the very firmly tongue-in-cheek "Find Your Own Identity,"
but was more than happy to watch it again, especially as it culminates
with ninjas! 64 Revolt's offerings are punchy synth-led electronica with
Scooter overtones; both "Next Generation," with its vaguely White
Stripes-style video, and "You Can't Hold Us Back" and its Aphex
Twin-style mutations are infectiously joyful, although the "Hurricane"
video is rather poor and the band looks quite self-conscious when the
camera is on them. While Hansel's "Grids" and "Blipverts" are at turns
howling misery and barely-there electronic shivers, the videos are a
perfect balance between simple image manipulations and time-warped shots
of a band who seem very much at home with what they're doing, and
rightly so, as they're doing it very well! Special mention goes to Mind
Disruption's "Sick Minds," the images of which some may find disturbing,
but credit must be given to a band who chooses to provide subtitles to
their own often incomprehensible vocals, and who are able to weave such
images so skilfully with a knowing humour that is impossible to ignore.
On the flipside, there are tracks here I admit to sitting through on
sufferance. The worst offender was DHC Meinhof. Videos "Like A Fire" and
"Anarchist Revolution" (which I admit to not watching the entirety of,
as I was cringing too much) are as badly constructed as their
accompanying bile-laden tracks. There is absolutely no excuse for
F_Noise's "Fight," which is frankly embarrassing with its angsty and
irritating vocals and a video that looks like it was filmed by a bunch
of drunken students.
In conclusion, the diversity of featured artists means there's something
for everyone on this release, and the added bonus of the Jukebox feature
makes it a very well rounded retrospective of D-Trash's work to date.
Looking forward to the next ten years!
-- Catherine C. [8/10]
Crucial Blast
(www.crucialblast.net)
The Canadian extreme electronica label DTrash has been at it for ten
years now, and they've amassed an impressive catalog of releases from
the deep underground of aggressive and confrontational beat-driven
electronic music. What's especially cool about this is that the label
has maintained a diehard DIY aesthetic since day one, which is something
that we love to see and support. Most of the DTrash output has been
associated with the "digital hardcore" movement, and the label has long
been a compatriot of the legendary Digital Hardcore label operated by
Alec Empire from Atari Teenage Riot, but there's more to the Dtrash
sound than just speed-metal inflected breakcore and techno. The label
has also released all kinds of releases that span harsh noise, dark
ambient, industrial, IDM, and more, but there is almost always an
undercurrent of heaviness to their bands that is what made me check them
out a couple of years ago. I first got into the Dtrash label after
hearing Schizoid, the black metal-infected breakcore project that is one
of the labels flagship artists, and from there discovered stuff like the
awesome doom n' bass of Unitus and the fucked-up plunder techno of CPU
War.
Now they've put together their 100th release, a DVD that commemorates
their ten year anniversary by stuffing a disc to the brim with music
videos from a ton of Dtrash artists, live concert footage, a jukebox
loaded with over three hours of music from the Dtrash vaults, and more.
The music video section of the DVD features professionally shot videos
from Schizoid, Bastards United, Hansel, Oxygenfad, DHC Meinhof,
64Revolt, Rabbit Junk, Celebrity Dead, Mind Disruption, F-Noise, NoCore,
Hyperdriver, Princess Rotative, and Faux Pride. Eighteen music videos in
all from a ton of D-Trash artists, some of whom are gonna be familiar to
fans of underground digital hardcore stuff (Schizoid, DHC Meinhof) and a
bunch that I've never heard of before, but pretty much all of this is
killer. There is a wide variety of film styles used for these videos,
which makes for interesting viewing.. The anthemic midpaced
electro-thrash of Schizoid's "Generation Fuck You" is matched with grim,
flash-animated urban landscapes; Bastards United keep it old school with
layered black and white live footage of the band busting out the raging,
supercharged cyber-hardcore punk of "Less Is Not More"....if it weren't
for the vicious digital breakbeats that strafe the performance, I could
almost be fooled into thinking that this was some long lost Midwestern
hardcore squad. Hansel shows up a couple of times on the disc, both with
the minimalist glitch dirge "Grid" (which looks surprisingly "pro", like
you could see this vid play on an alternate Earth where MTV blasts
grindcore, gabba, and breakcore music videos all day long), and the
NIN-ish dirge "Blipverts".
Oxygenfad were another one of the bands that was news to me when I
popped this into my deck, but fuck if their song "Find Your Own
Identity" isn't a straight up ripper that sounds like what might've
happened to Ministry if they had been way more obsessed with the melodic
hardcore punk of Dag Nasty than speed metal. Pair that thrashing
instrumental jam up with some bizarre, dayglo ninja battles and you've
got one of my fave bits on here.
Sure, DHC Meinhof are cheesy in the way that alot of that DHR stuff
comes off as cheesy over a decade later, but I don't care - I still
think that the videos of the members dressed up in quasi-fascist
uniforms, ski masks and black leather as they yell at the camera with
heavy arch German accents are totally fun, and man, they bust out some
beefy drum machine breaks on "Like A Fire" that are heavy DUTY that
kinda remind me of the sick distorted breakbeats that Godflesh used to
drop at the height of their hip-hop obsession. Nice.
Another new one to my eyes and ears, 64Revolt break out with a killer
video for their terminally catchy electro punk anthem "Next Generation",
and the combo of 80's style music video and hammering electro dance pop
makes me think that I'm hallucinating some unseen Information Society
video calling for youth revolution. Rabbit Junk are similiarly super
catchy and on the more accessible side of of this comp, and they also
have some of the coolest animation in their video for "In Your Head No
One Can Hear You Scream" courtesy of Kandykore, who create a weird
cartoon world of massive lavendar plants and graf-spraying bunnies and
urban malaise. And that's just the first half of the videos. There's
more vids on here from Celebrity Dead, Mind Disruption, the blistering
F_Noise, NoCore, several more vids from G4Revolt, Hyperdriver, Princesse
Rotative, and Faux Pride, all of which are rooted in the hardest of
digital hardcore and electro punk sounds, and accompanied by cool,
creative videos. I still can't believe how "professional" most of these
look, almost all of these coulda been played on MTv if that channel had
ever had any connection to confrontational, truly underground music.
This is a killer collection for anyone into the sounds of D-Trash or
their sister label Digital Hardcore and that whole DHR/Atari Teenage
Riot sound.
But that's only part of what makes up this DVD. The Dtrash Jukebox
section has 100 tracks that you can scan through, with one track culled
from each of the labels 100 releases, and it adds up to over three hours
of music. In addition, there's a section titled "Xtra TRash/Warez" that
features low-fi but totally watcheable live performance footage from
Schizoid, 64Revolt, Zymotic, Punishyourself, Exist, and Phallus Uber
Alles.
There's a TON of stuff on this DVD that will take you a while to get
through, and it's a cool visual collection for fans of Dtrash's
hard-edged breakcore/digital hardcore sounds. The DVD is packaged in a
full color plastic case, with a complete track listing on the back.
-Crucialblast.net
Industrial.org
(www.industrial.org)
"By: Royce Icon
Man, the fine folks at D-Trash sent me this thing like 4 months ago, and
I just now got around to reviewing it. I'm a total fucking slacker,
really I am. Anyways, let's just establish that I suck, and get on with
the review!
The title of this thing is pretty self explanatory. It's a collection of
music videos put out by the artists on the D-Trash label. What isn't
quite so obvious is the meaning behind the DVD; As the 100th release of
the label and as a marker of it's 10th year anniversary, it's kind of a
big symbolic celebration. I mean shit, how many DIY labels, or artistic
avenues in general, last 5 years, let alone 10? They're few and far
between for sure. So yeah, that is definitely something that deserves
celebrating, and this DVD is a great way to go about it.
As both a musician and a video artist myself, I was really interested in
seeing what the different artists would come up with. I have to say, the
results really surprised me. Not that I was expecting pure shit or
anything, I was just expecting to see some okay stuff, but D-trash done
wiped my ass all over the floor with some serious gourmet shit! (Yes,
that was vaguely a Pulp Fiction reference.) Some of these videos are
more pro than others, but they're all at least somewhat entertaining,
interesting or imaginative. I'd be lying if I said I dug all of the
music, but the visuals were usually so interesting that I could more
than look past that.
However, there was one exception to that, one video in which I liked
little of either; the Celebrity Dead "Columbine (2003)" vid. I don't
like the group much, and I thought that the dramatization of the
massacres was just lame. Not that I'm some PC asshole or anything, but I
just thought it was lazy and, generally it just rubbed me wrong. But
other than that, everything ruled.
I don't have enough time or patience to describe each video in detail
for you, so here are some synopsis' of my favorites:
64REVOLT - "NEXT GENERATION"- man, this is by far my favorite video
here. It's so big, and fun, and very pro. The effects they use in it
look very. very good, and everything is bright and vibrant, and just
really poppy. It really fits the song perfectly.
DHC MEINHOF - "LIKE A FIRE"- This is so cool! It's very dirty and
successful at achieving both a retro film noir and fascist propaganda
quality. That, and it's downright sexy. The shots of the girl (Vocalist
Magg Destruction perhaps?) nude with the Iraqi prison style bag on her
head and a cardboard sign barely covering her boobs is as politically
relevant as it is boner inducing. That, and the scenes at the end are
very cool and though out, adding a cool abstract plot-line to the video.
Oh and cellphone smashing!
HANSEL - "BLIPVERTS"- I love this one because it's so goddamn sun! The
dudes are rocking out with their keyboards, and there are all of these
imovie style effects, and it just reeks of a 90's style grunge video
gone horribly, horribly wrong- which is a very good thing! These fuckers
ROCK!
As I said before, pretty much all of these videos rule. D-Trash have
done a fine job in bringing together over an hours worth of interesting
visual stimulation, and it's worth the entry fee for sure. Here's to
another 100 D-Trash releases! Viva industrial DIY, fucker!
RegenMag Magazine
(www.regenmag.com)
"By: Ilker Yücel /
Editor
Anytime a label reaches 100 releases, it's something of a testament to
the label's longevity, or at least their ability to appeal to a wide
range of artists and audiences. D-Trash Records have made a name for
themselves in the extreme electronic music scene as Canada's answer to
Digital Hardcore Recordings, presenting an assortment of artists like
64Revolt, DHC Meinhof, and Hansel. Combining harsh and noisy electronics
with varying modes of sociopolitical aggression, the artists on D-Trash
offer the listener an alternative to the standard format most punk bands
employ in favor of something more confrontational and experimental - at
least, that's the idea. The extent to which these bands are successful
in this mission is up to the individual listener, but regardless,
D-Trash has spent the last decade releasing a plethora of albums in the
underground, finally culminating in this, D-Trash 100. As a compilation
of music videos produced by the many bands on the label, D-Trash 100
gives audiences not only the ultimate musical retrospective of the
label, but also offers a heavy dose of audio/visual stimulation that is
sure to send your synapses into overdrive.
Given the underground nature of the label and its artists, it's only
natural that the production values for many of these videos would follow
suit. Most of them appear to be homemade vignettes of the band, produced
on little more than a camcorder and fed into the average movie-maker
program one could purchase for cheap at their local Best Buy. Still,
this does not diminish the entertainment value; quite the opposite,
since this style actually complements the D.I.Y. spirit of the music.
Examples of this approach include Oxygenfad's "Find Your Own Identity,"
in which rapid fire shots of the band are interspersed with montages of
kung-fu films to enhance the song's frenetic pace, and Hansel's videos
for "Blipverts" and "Grids" are little more than the band performing in
a basement, the visuals enhanced only by standard distortions that any
Adobe program is capable of. The same can be said for F_Noise's "Fight,"
which sees the band raucously thrashing about with flashing strobes amid
clips from the CGI animations in Ghost in the Shell, while "Less is Not
More" by Bastards United is little more than overlapping layers of live
clips of the band. Other videos such as the animations in Schizoid's
"Generation Fuck You" and Rabbit Junk's "In Your Head No One Can Hear
You Scream," courtesy of Kandycore, emphasize a higher production
standard, perhaps indicative of the label's growing fortunes as their
reputation steadily rises.
From the frantic animations of 64Revolt's "Next Generation" to the
terrorist propaganda of DHC Meinhof's "Like a Fire" to the
one-and-a-half-minute-long clip of Celebrity Dead's "Columbine 2003," in
which several gunmen wreak havoc in a school, the videos on D-Trash 100
are as radical and revolutionary as the style of music these artists
create. Included on this DVD is the D-Trash jukebox, featuring a track
from each of the label's 100 releases, adding up to three hours of
music, as well as six additional bootleg videos from the likes of Punish
Yourself and Phallus Uber Alles. While D-Trash Records' brand of digital
hardcore and industrial punk may not appeal to everyone’s tastes, those
with the eyes and ears for music that goes against the status quo and
demonstrates a true underground D.I.Y. spirit, D-Trash 100 is a DVD for
you to experience."
Gothtronic Magazine
(www.gothtronic.com)
"It was in 1995 when the
young Berlin digital punks of Atari Teenage Riot hit the world with
their debut album entitled '1995' (later re-released as 'Delete
Yourself'); since those days the world had a new musicstyle, digital
hardcore. A combination of hardcore/metal and punk with often a heavy
political statement in it.
In 1998 the members of CPUwar and DJ Rabbies from Canada started with
their intention of bringing together the worldwide cyberpunk scene in
the vein of the German label Digital Hardcore Records.
Now they have something to celebrate, their 100th release since the
start of the label, they do this with the release of a DVD compilation
including 18 full-length music videos, more than 3 hours of tracks from
their complete discography and 6 extra 'bootleg' live videos of very
poor quality.
The DVD starts off with Schizoid, the main act on the label and probarly
the most known, a nice animation of red soldiers in a bombed town, I
love it, musically a sort of trash metal with some electronic drums.
Next up are Bastards United, b/w 'live' video, with a more metalcore
feeling to it and some fucked up amen breaks. Hansel has a homemade
videoclip with the first minute showing the word 'overture', then a guy
putting a mic in his mouth going to, it looks like, a recording in their
rehearsal room. The music is a more of mix of ambient/noisedrones and
vocals with some breakbeats.
DHC Meinhof is definitely one of my favorite bands on this disc, I heard
them the first time in 2002 and don't know for sure if these Polish guys
and girl are still active, they are represented with 2 tracks with
'Anarchist Revoltion' being my favorite. Another very professional
approach of a clip is 'In your head no one can hear you scream' by
Rabbit Junkie, also maybe the most commercial sounding track on this
DVD. Again a nicely made animation. The videos end with 'Third
Dimension' of Faux Pride, a excellent noise breakcore track, great clip
also.
The extra's include 107 songs from their complete discography that you
can play in a sort of Jukebox having the info of the album, cover and
track on the screen, very nice.
A great birthday release by this Canadian cult-label which has some
promising future releases ready for release.
Grindthieves.org (www.grindthieves.com/blog)
"If there's one thing I admire more than great, cutting edge,
underground, difficult music it is those who have been consistently
putting in their blood, sweat, & tears to keep pushing it forward in
their own unique fashion. One such group doing so for quite some now is
the D-Trash Records camp.
For ten years now D-Trash has been blazing their own trail in the world
of extreme, uncompromising, difficult music by way of hardcore D.I.Y.
aesthetics and simply just getting the music out there. Forming out of
simple networking into an online community and music label to a full
fledged record label with worldwisde distribution and top level respect,
D-Trash has always known the score and always kept it real. I remember
first running into their material somewhere around 2000 when I became
very serious about breakcore and other leftfield and noisy electronic
music genres and I was instantly brought to attention. Artists like
Schizoid, Noize Punishment, Heartworm, Contra, Babylon Disco, Ambassador
21, Stuntrock, and Sangre are all names I remember hearing material from
and being truly blown away by.
Now in their 10th year and on their 100th release, they offer up a DVD
full of awesomeness including music videos, bootleg concert footage, top
hits from select artists/releases, and more. This idea and concept isn't
all that new or groundbreaking, but for the world of extreme electronic
music - it's a much needed breath of fresh air. One that I'm sure going
to partake in."
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