HANIN ELIAS REVIEWS

HANIN ELIAS - FUTURE NOIR

Sonic Seducer

Für Hanin Elias und Fatal-Recordings sieht die Zukunft alles andere als schwarz aus: Fernab von Geschlechter- und Krachzwängen operiert das Label der Berlinerin seit geraumer Zeit äußerst umtriebig und hat mit Tara DeLong, Kunst und The Vanishing auch schon einige vielversprechende Acts an Land gezogen. Auf dem Cover ihres neuen Albums präsentiert sich Elias als eine Art Grande Dame des elektronischen Noise, wenn dieser Begriff auch spätestens auf "Future Noir" eigentlich ein viel zu eng gefasster ist. "No Games No Fun" deutete 2003 ja schon an, dass es hier um mehr geht als um grelles Geballer aus allen Rohren und dass die Grenzen zu Electro-Pop, Punk und Industrial offen, wenn nicht fließend sind. Sogar der legendäre J Mascis von Dinosaur Jr. gab sich einst die Ehre einer Kooperation, und nun gastiert Sonic Youths Thurston Moore himself auf dem Stück "In My Room" am Ende des Albums. Bis dahin hat man aber bereits einen feinen Zehnerpack rhythmisch-bassige Elektronik hinter sich, der vor allem durch beeindruckende Selbstbeschränkung aufhorchen lässt. Songs wie "Untouchable", "After All" oder "City Lights" kommen nicht mit dem Holzhammer, sondern schleichen sich verführerisch und eindringlich ins Lustzentrum des Hörers, die Bass-Synthies strahlen eine ungeahnte Wärme aus, und Hanin Elias' Stimme verbreitet eine Sinnlichkeit, die ihr neues Material zu einer ungemein sexy Kiste macht. "Future Noir" ist ihr bisher stilvollstes Album und macht endgültig klar, dass für den Krach bei Fatal mittlerweile andere zuständig sind. Und wer J Mascis mal in einer Küche klampfen sehen möchte, kann das beim Bonus-Video zu "No Games No Fun" tun. Doch nicht nur deswegen macht "Future Noir" großen Spaß.

Thomas Pilgrim

DNA Six

Nicht nur der vernunftbegabte Homo sapiens scheint trüben Gedankens in die Zukunft zu schauen, auch Hanin Elias visualisiert auf 'Future Noir' Zukunftsvisionen, die mit dem verkrampften Positivdenken unserer Oberen nichts gemein haben. Nur eines ist an dieser Scheibe weder traurig noch apokalyptisch anmutend - die Musik. Nach dem eher sperrigen Vorgänger 'No Games No Fun' begab sich Hanin mit Produzent und Songwriter TweakerRay ins Studio, um zu zeigen, dass auch synthetische Songs eine Seele besitzen können. Das Wesen der Tracks bestimmen der wütende, zugleich verletzliche Gesang Hanins und die wavige Atmosphäre des Albums, welche sich wider Erwarten sehr gut mit intensivem Dance und verzerrtem Geboller verträgt, ohne die ruhigen Lieder zum Störfaktor zu degradieren. 'Future Noir' besticht durch ein atemberaubendes Niveau, und nur eine freut diese Rückkehr zu alter Stärke noch mehr als den Hörer - die Bassbox. (10 von 10)

Lars Schubert

Dorfdisco

This CD comes enhanced with a video for "No Games No Fun" featuring the exquisite trademark guitar doodlings of Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis and a knife-wielding Elias in the studio. It starts off as a dreamy slow alt-rock ballad and subsequently explodes into a full-blown punk assault, then ends abruptly. Singing to screaming. For me, it is the highlight of this CD, although the rest of it is worth repeated listenings. To be honest, I was expecting more of an angry, noisy assault on the senses. But Future Noir is actually quite subdued, which says much for Elias's versatility as a singer, songwriter, and musician. Precious melodies elicit a profound melancholy feeling consisting of intellectual despair, wanting, and loneliness. These emotions are perhaps best inscribed on the title track, which - with its fascinating lyrics and dark electro poppiness - manages to avoid many of the clichés that Elias's peers in the field of electronic seem stuck in. Her vocal delivery alternates between smooth and breathy, always remaining seductive, sharp, and perfectly in-tune with the emotional richness of the music. Instead of relying on the by-now formulaic '80s revivalism of electroclash, Elias seems to cull much of her material from what may be vaguely referred to as '90s alternative rock, updating the best forgotten moments of that era to the post-millennial digital revolution. Thoughtful and imaginative while remaining true in its devotion to the underlying concept, Future Noir is a rich, layered album that leaves the listener with much to discover. Explore in liberal, frequent doses to get the full effect.

May 2004 Travis Jeppesen

HANIN ELIAS - NO GAMES NO FUN (FATAL CD 1)

KERRANG (UK)

Exciting experimental visions from 21st century punk goddess.

If anger is indeed an energy, as Johnny Rotten once sang, then the razorwire invective delivered by Hanin Elias during her time in Atari Teenage Riot was louder than a bomb. "No Games…"her first full-length outing for her own 'Fatal' imprint - shows that post-ATR domesticity and motherhood have done little to tame her incendiary soul. Drawing on a host of collaborators, including noise supremo Merzbow, alt-rock demi-god J Mascis, Einstürzende Neubauten's Alex Hacke, and embracing a mutant soundboard of techno, punk, and distorted, sequenced, other, Elias has created a distinct personal statement that's raw, fierce and fun. It's never easy listening of course, but the hypnotic sprawl of 'Spirits In The Sky' and the eerie synth cascade of 'Falling Deep' show this hardwired warrior at her darkest and most affecting.

KKKK

Catherine Yates

CMJ (USA)

Hanin Elias may be best known for her role as singer (or more appropriately, shouter) and founding member of Atari Teenage Riot, but when she grew discontent with the state of the music business, Elias established German label Fatal Recordings as a showcase for musicians that break new musical ground through the use of electronic equipment. Released through this imprint, Elias's second solo album, No Games No Fun, draws inspiration from many of the same sources as the group that brought her to popularity. Though similarly motivated by fantasy, political unrest and personal nightmares, her solo work is far less harsh and abrasive and - most importantly - less monotonous than what we've seen from Atari Teenage Riot. Collaborations with J.Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.), Khan, Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten), ATR's Alec Empire and Merzbow, as well as Fatal Recordings artists P. Virus and C.H.I.F.F.R.E., add yet more style and disparity to Elias's techno punk and apocalyptic atmospheres; the result is a brutal, yet highly enjoyable, album that serves as evidence for what can be done with the help of good friends.

Justin Kleinfeld

MAGNET MAGAZINE

If Atari Teenage Riot is the pummeling, politicized Velvet Underground of Germanic digital hardcore (just say it is, OK?), then Hanin Elias is Nico to Alec Empire's Lou Reed; a flat-toned phoneticist with a splendid axe to grind. Rather than desire meth or men through tightly clenched teeth, Elias is a speed freak having angry fun with lyrics steeped in Stepford Wive-ism ("One Of Us"), socialist, anti-superpower rants ("Rockets Against Stones") and tirades against trust, bees and such. Like Nico, she makes electro-Teutonia sound desperate and fleeting. Empire, Merzbow and Einstürzende Neubauten's Alexander Hacke are here to help, but, like Nico's Chelsea Girl, the best moments on No Games No Fun shine through via friends from more unfamiliar soil. While the first half of No Games comes off like the Human League's Travelogue ground through a garbage disposal, Elias eventually lets loose her sound and her self, posing as a snarling bitch goddess on a handful of cocky tracks dictated by kinky techno maven Khan's pulsating, lava-lamp groove. Talk about your non-stop erotic cabaret. When Elias isn't busy playing nasty gal for Khan, she's mewling her way through barreling Bonham drums and searing guitars courtesy of J Mascis. His stoner maesltrom, surprisingly, suits her sallow howl nicely, making for a compelling album that's more fun than you thought it would be. [Fatal, www.fatal-recordings.com]

A.D. Amorosi

SPEX (GER)

Hanin Elias the Tracey Emin of the Berlin based Post-Punk-Electronic -Underground>"the shoutr'iss" of Atari Teenage Riot,the femme fatal with the Lydia Lunch-a-like power released "No Games No Fun". For this record she invited old suspects of rock generations.Dudes like Alexander Hacke,Ex-Einstuerzende Neubauten who looks meanwhile like he's playing with the Revolting Cocks,Mario Mentrup,writing experimental-psychopath from the Berlin end eighties/early nineties,C.H.I.F.F.R.E (producer of this album),ATR-Destroyer Alec Empire,the burning Electronic Crash geniuses, Can>"KHAN" Oral and somehow out of range J Mascis,slow-motion expert of Dinosaur JR. . All this is Hardcore Punk-Rock and electronic flashing.Hanin Elias is doing the vampire over a white noise-layer,she's the cat-woman & Elvira,the dirty psycho nurse and Rrrriot Grrrrrl Drop Out. Sometimes it gets heavily pathetic like in "Spirits in the sky">church organs with "pounding resonanz".Alec Empire bombs in speed,restless energy,fat,dangerous beats and Merzbow and Philipp Virus kick in earthquake noise guitars.Mascis is doing what he's always doing: fat constructed guitar carpets with ugly colours.All this can't kill Hanin.ATR-school is even turning slow tracks into hard,four to the floor agitation-products.

Annette Weber

LOGO (UK)

As you might expect from the frontwomen of Atari Teenage Riot, Hanin Elias' second solo album is heavy with electro, heavy like The Clash- Aided by a roll-call of collaborators (...) there'S no affected sexuality here, no misgiuded attempts to make it dancefloor friendly, just an avalanche of deep, enigmatic, darkly seasual modernist beauty. Beauty? Not a word often used in this context, but the sinsiter. Blade Runner-esque future noir that features most heavily is seductive, the exquisite, insitsent motorik clatter impossible to ignore. "Wanting A Machine" summons P.I.L.'s "Love Song" through a digital sandstorm while "The Bee" recalls Machines Of Loving Grace, which isn't a bad summation of this collection.

Rick Deckard

AMG

No Games No Fun, the second solo album from Hanin Elias, singer and founding member of Atari Teenage Riot, is a powerful mix of industrial beats, crunchy, attacking synth lines, and Elias' alternately sultry and aggressive vocals. On "Catpeople," Elias sounds a bit like Kathleen Hanna, making Elias' solo work sort of a dark, foreboding, and distinctly European companion to Hanna's Le Tigre. It's fitting since Fatal Recordings was founded "to break up the fixed structures of the male-dominated music business." The highlights of No Games No Fun come in the form of the interesting collaborations, from the new wave-y pop of the C.H.I.F.F.R.E., Elias' clamorous work with Einstürzende Neubauten's Alexander Hacke ("Spirits in the Sky"). The flashy Euro-hip-hop piece with Alec Empire ("You Suck") is both groovy and kitschy (if a little one-note), but it's the noise collage, "Rockets Against Stones," with Merzbow that is truly groundbreaking. J Mascis, arguably the most exciting contributor to the album, helps out on the title track with washes of poppy fuzz punk. In the end, Elias' work may not be for everyone, but No Games No Fun is essential listening for fans of Atari Teenage Riot's post-industrial electro-hardcore.

Charles Spano

ICE (UK)

Hanin Elias, one of the scary women from scary German noise terrorists Atari Teenage Riot, shouts scary things over tunes. This actually sounds like PJ Harvey shouting over the top of an industrial grinder in a goth/disco nightclub full of gunfire. Fantastic, frankly. Have I said it's scary yet? Thought so.****

DC

MONTREAL MIRROR (Can)

Atari Teenage Riot's screamy mannequin-bot unfurls her sophomore solo disc with a kitchen full of iron chefs, including the inevitable Alec Empire, Khan, Merzbow and J. Mascis. There's plonking organ horror, Autobahn hip hop, noize punk, electro funk, robo-smut, spastic fuzz rock, acidic dance and a Joy Division tribute (or "Heart and Soul" à la Elias). Along with her producer/co-writer C.H.I.F.F.R.E, Elias curates a tasty buffet, but a few dishes are more funny and foul than actually edible, like a jiggling jello sculpture with a severed hand inside. 7.5/10

Lorraine Carpenter

BUDDYHEAD (USA)

Another solo album from the girl singer formerly of Atari Teenage Riot. This reminds me of Le Tigre, but is actually a lot better. The production and beats have an amateurish hip-hop feel. But it's ok. The production and arrangement ideas are actually all over the place. Good work. Plus there's a great picture of Hanin and the very creepy looking J Mascis inside. You can't lose with a creep like that on your team.

Aaron Icarus

AUDIOTEST (Belgium)

Though her latest No Games No Fun is less on the Armageddon tip, Elias does manage to concoct an intense collection of chaotically corrupt tracks featuring an unusually eclectic guest appearance lineup of C.H.I.F.F.R.E, Mario Mentrup, Alexander Hacke, Alec Empire, Merzbow, Phillip Virus, Can Oral/Khan, and yes, ex-Dinosaur Jr. crooner J. Mascis. No Games No Fun is a diabolical good time. As to be expected Elias commands the listeners' attention throughout the 13 tracks, but it is her collaborators who round off the album and provide a maddening backdrop of noise, beats and enjoyable sonic disruption.

Alkemist

HANIN ELIAS - IN FLAMES (DHR CD 22)

Hanin Elias

By Ian Grey

In Flames (1995-1999)
Digital hardcore
Hanin Elias is all about adding insight to injury. According to her self-penned online biography, the Atari Teenage Riot lead shrieker was born prematurely to a traumatized mother and an arch-conservative father. By age 15, she was living in a filthy squat in Rauchhaus, Germany. Of course, the artist could be making some false claims to add some ground-zero grit to her cred, but then you put on In Flames (1995-1999) and hear her scream.

We're not talking a rote rock yelp: It's more like lungs being ripped out, like the stickiest of primal traps made flesh and sound. In comparison, the relatively polite banshee wails of Diamanda Galas' Plague Mass sound reassuring and refined.

Unlike skillful but hate-soiled poseurs like Eminem, Elias is the real deal: The only way the mean streets she invokes could be read as "cool" would be through the eyes of a sociopath. Musically, this is an MC-505 groovebox set on "industrial," woofer-wrecking rumbles, and samples of God knows what all cranked through what sounds like Satan's own Hi-Watt stack. Lyrically, it's pretty artless, black-and-white shit. Then again, so is rape, the subject of "Girl Serial Killer": "I come with my mind/ Cut you in pieces/ I come 'cause I want some quiet."

Elias also shows the natural-born orchestrator's knack for juxtaposing seemingly disparate electronic textures, gales of noise, snippets of chat, and slices of melody. On "Sirens," she toys in a girly-giggle voice with some playas who want to look at her tits. The increasingly ominous chitchat cross-fades to strip-joint lounge music, then to a looped orchestral theme cruising on a bed of pink noise, which devolves into primordial sonic muck until . . .

Right. That unholy scream. Hanin Elias is not someone most folks would want to meet in a dark alley. But if the concerns voiced on In Flames resonate with you, she could be your own personal Dirty Harry.

Hanin Elias

by Wilson Neate
PopMatters Music Critic

It comes as no real surprise to learn, from Hanin Elias, that the Digital Hardcore Recordings stable is — like so many previous organizations espousing radical politics — just another boys' club. And in response to that state of affairs, Atari Teenage Riot's anarchist cheerleader has set up Fatal, a woman-centered subsidiary of Digital Hardcore through which In Flames is released.

With Atari Teenage Riot, Elias is part of one of the only outfits around still making good on punk's original threat to destroy popular music and its attendant, nefarious ideologies. While the oppositional message of their lyrics speaks for itself, the most compelling aspect of ATR is, of course, their sound, which moves the political from the cerebral to the visceral level. Live or on record — albeit turned up very loud — ATR's revolutionary energy comes through at a gut level as they provide the aural equivalent of being run over by a large truck — repeatedly.

Although Hanin Elias has been a principle architect of that fuck-off aesthetic alongside Alec Empire, Nic Endo and Carl Crack, and while In Flames won't be filed under "soft hits," this record doesn't simply reconstruct ATR's first-one-to-let-go-of-the-hand-grenade-is-a-sissy sound. ATR's sonic terrorism sticks largely to the same formula from track to track, but Elias displays a broader range of ideas and — although it might seem improbable for an artist on Digital Hardcore — an element of subtlety too.

Outrage at the usual suspects (sexism, fascism and capitalism) is no less central to the equation here, despite more diverse formats that show that Elias isn't afraid to try out new sonic configurations. The drum'n'bass mutations of "Show"; the minimal ambience of "Sirens"; the warped trip-hop/jungle of "You Will Never Get Me"; the industrial riot-grrrl beats of "Girl Serial Killer"; and the retro-futurist, spooky synth of the title track are a few examples of the refreshing breadth and depth of In Flames. Another indication of the album's scope is that it manages to incorporate samples of both Joy Division's "Disorder" and Bach's "Air on the G String."

Elias's vocal performance is no less varied, ranging from a whisper ("Sirens") to an in-your-face scream ("Onetwo") via hints of Billie Holiday at her most dissolute ("You Will Never Get Me").

Against the grain of current trends, even the remixes that round off In Flames prove to be far from filler material — most notably Nic Endo's reworking of "Slaves," stripped of its beats, and Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman's lo-fi rock rendering of "Girl Serial Killer." On top of that, there's even a video of "In Flames" bundled on the CD.

Lest you think I'm saying here that Hanin Elias's solo project fails to sustain the intensity of ATR's full frontal assault, have no fear. Don't worry, be fucking angry — there's still a riot going on. It just seems a little more intelligent and inventive with Elias leading the charge.