Ambassador21

INV021 (C)&(P) Invasion

CD / Digital album

Digital version available on Bandcamp and all the rest best digital stores

With more adrenalin fuelled anger than a transit van full of so called punk bands, Ambassador 21 smash forth with a clenched fist and a mouth full of nails. Each track is full on overdriven rage and all the better for it. Belarussia’s answer to Atari Teenage Riot, but way more aggressive. Alexey and Natasha just don’t know how to be subtle. Stealing riffs and beats to claim as their own, A21 even mange to reshape and repackage Ministry into an even angrier and self destructive monster. The most intense and insane sounding punk album you will hear this year.

When chaos and rage take form in Belarus there’s only one band you can name and the name is Ambassador 21. The latest release of the band is titled AKCIJA (“Action”) and during its 55 minutes of length you’ll find yourself begging for a moment where you can take a breath. The 16 tracks are like a shot of adrenalin that will make your heart pump at 140 bpm or more. Normally Ambassador 21 are filed under digital hardcore and if you think about the two terms in a separate way, digital=samples and hardcore=punk, you could be right, but if when you spell digital hardcore you think about Atari Teenage Riot, things are different. Ambassador 21 doesn’t sound like ATR and luckily this isn’t the main point because I wasn’t looking for an ATR substitute. Ambassador 21 (helped by Fanny on “Satisfaction”, by Schizoid on “Zombie”, by Punish Yourself on “Right To Die” and by D.O.A., Schizoid and Punish Yourself on “Revolution Is A Business”) kick ass because their rage is true and everyday they live the transformation of a country that lived the decline of an “ideal” just to see it turned into something different. Does common people will be free as individuals and do they want to be free for real or are they just like zombies? Are these the zombies Ambassador 21 are referring to into their track? Maybe you’ll be able to find some hints into the interview you’ll read soon on CHAIN D.L.K. pages, meanwhile a thing is for sure: this album is true, energetic, noisy, driven by distorted vocals, rhythms and guitars. To be short: this is something you can’t miss if you appreciate honesty and if you dig fist shaped forms of melody.

A l’instar d’une soiree ou d’un concert, il arrive qu’une chronique parte en live. Recu simplement 8 titres pour chroniquer le dernier album du duo bielorusse d’Ambassador21 et j’ai tellement accroche que j’ai immediatement commande quelques albums chez Invasion Wreck. Plus qu’un coup de cњur, j’ai pris la foudre de plein fouet.
Atari Teenage Riot.
Comparaison inevitable et facile mais Ambassador amene quelque chose de plus que ATR. Deja c’est moins dogmatique. Plus proche a mon sens d’Hanin Elias. Meme si la base semble identique, a savoir Punk/electro avec grosses guitares, A21 n’est en aucun cas un prolongement d’ATR. Beaucoup plus guitare et moins drum and bass que l’ancetre Berlinois.
La filiation avec ATR est d’ailleurs clairement indiquee dans le titre “Belarus Teenage Action”, base sur des samples d’ATR et second opus de l’album “Akcija”.
Un bon bol de rage concentree.
Samples connus (dont un titre deja tres rapide de Ministy, «Stigmata» peut etre) passes dans une moulinette ultraspeed pour le titre «Ambassador». Quelques titres en collaboration avec Schizoid dont l’excellent «Zombie» et ses samples flippes et «Right to Die» Avec Punish Yourself et sa rythmique jungle. Les titres d’A21 sont superbement composes et d’une grande richesse, contrairement a beaucoup d’autres formations pour qui leelectro/punk/digitale n’est qu’un postulat de depart, un cadre tres limite pour y tasser sa rage. Ambassador21 pousse les murs du genre, a coups de masse, et palsambleu! Ca fait du bien!
Alex, l’un des membres du groupe baigne dans la musique (passage a la radio et direction de son label Invasion Wreck) maitrise le punk, l’electro et l’ambient. Habillage de sons rigolos dans les rares silences laisses par des compos au napalm. Un concassage sexy de la musique violente et speed. Des reminiscences noise et des voix ecorchees au vocoder, bien rauques. Messages hurles ou scandes. Tout au bout du spectre du cross-over, grattes/machines, il y a Ambassador21. Dans le rouge et la conflagration, keupons et breakcoreux effectuent les memes pas de danse. Les linguistes ne manqueront pas de noter la grande occurrence du mot Revolution. Comme dans les titres «We declare Revolution», tres dansable. Ou «Revolution is a business».
Pour commander, oubliez le Paypen et votre sacro sainte CB de valet du capitalisme decadent, un petit mail a monsieur Protasov puis un bon vieux biffeton planque dans une enveloppe anonyme lancee vers Minsk et le tour est joue.
Si vous aimez un tantinet le bruit et la revolte digitale, jetez vous sur ce groupe d’exception. Si le genre vous a toujours rebute, “Akcija” pourrait etre l’album qui vous fera basculer de l’autre cote de la saturation. C’est en effet, un des rares albums de hardcore/digital qu’on peut se repasser «plusieurs fois» d’affile. Aucune chanson ne donne l’impression de faiblir. Un tour de force.
A venir incessamment sous peu un album de remixes dont les noms me collent deja des frissons (P.A.L, Converter, Roger Rotor et autres).
Quelques mots egalement sur l’album remixe par Buben, beaucoup plus Indus/hypno/rythmique. Un bien bel objet (limite a 99 exemplaires) enrobe d’un carre de feutrine et qui renferme des tresors d’agression soniques dont le genialissime «Skyphes». Intro aux violons martelee d’une pulsation sale et de trilles en folie, alliage de l’ambient le plus depressif et du digital hardcore barre. Si vous etes plus sensible a la caresse froide des machines, se serait criminel de passer a cote de cette belle galette. Je bave d’envie de les voir en live meme si mon vieux squelette redoute les pogos extremistes que cette musique declenchera a coup sur.
Hola, il seront egalement a Paris au Katabar le 18 octobre et pour information cherchent d’autres lieux pour se produire. Message aux orgas parisiennes et de la ceinture de feu (la banlieue) ne laissez pas passer une telle occasion ! Octobre sera rouge et l’invasion ne fait que commencer.
Avant de me changer en VRP Bielorusse et de finir par aller vendre du A21 avec des CD plein le coffre de ma Skoda, j’indique juste l’adresse mail : invasion@ambassador21.com.
Un groupe majeur et essentiel. Allez hop! Tout le monde a Minsk!

Someone asked me for a recommendation of digital hardcore the other day and it suddenly hit me that the last ear canal scouring rage wash I could remember hearing along those lines came from via project Curse of the Golden Vampire. There’s something sad about a pair of old dabblers kicking the arses of all the healthy, hormones a raging teenagers and with the old school mostly selling out (fuck you DHR) or wavering (D-Trash), it warms my cold dead heart to hear these Belorussians still ranting with guns all ablaze. “Akcija” ain’t perfect but neither am I and this uptempo yell is as welcome black coffee the morning after a night of hard drinking.
This is a longish album with 54 minutes and 16 tracks burnt up before A21 are done with you. At least 2 or 3 of the songs have appeared on a previous EP but the rest of the disc seems to be virgin. Most of the lyrical content is in Russian which is how I like it as overly pandering to the west is not the way to go if you want legitimacy. That said, all of the titles are in English as well as the odd call to arms screamed by Alexey or Natasha so you at least get the gist of it (to fuck shit up as one would expect).
Musically A21 have left behind a few more of the EBM trappings while at the same time ramping up the guitar levels to the point where both hardcore and digital are fairly evenly represented. This lean towards the mosh pit has really kicked the aggro factor into overdrive this time out. It’s the rocking elements of Bile crash landed into the middle of COTGV’s “Mass Destruction”, the gabber sequencing mechanics kept intact so as to be insistent but the case ripped off, cables exposed and sparks shooting off the red hot from being overworked power supply. Raw yet mostly discernable, manic yet convincing and with enthusiasm as infectious as a tongue heavey kiss from someone infected with Ebola.
Transgressions? The main one is a dubious Ministry riff that squirts itself all over the song “Ambassador”. As rock bands go Ministry had a major impact and the way their riff / rhythm is recreated here suffers from enough Puff Daddy contamination to irritate like sand in the urethra (it’s not as unimaginative as sampling some ATR direct but still well below expectations). The sound quality is mostly pretty solid though perhaps just a noise hair heavy on the high end in spots but then again, that was through my Behringers – via discman and headphones it was perfect head banging temperature.
As a whole however “Akcija” has its veins coursing with the contagious sort of energy one used to find in trashier punk rock. It’s hard to stop tapping on shit, fidgetting about and resisting the urge to kick over the table and scream profanity at the top of my lungs is difficult once you get more than a few tracks in. If it can still do that for a jaded old fart like myself I expect a gig full of teenagers would have their heads all exploding “Scanners” style. This is one fire that ain’t out yet.

Ambassador 21 hail From Belarus’s very own Invasion Wreck Chords, a label that is new to me, but if the sound of Ambassador 21 is any clue to what they put out then you could easily call this label Digital Hardcore Records’ pissed off sister. Ambassador 21’s sound on their new album AKCIJA is harsh electronic gabber noise that reminds me of other greats in the genre such as Atari Teenage Riot and Punish Yourself. A21 is the duo of Natasha and Alexey (who also goes by the name DJ J. Christ) who complement each other very well as they take turns screaming their lyrics. The vocals are almost heard as a backdrop to the loud ear-splitting distortion of guitars, bass and breakcore beats, and just all around noise that provide the fuel that create the pure energy of each track. It is hard to describe the pure cacophony heard on this disc, all I can say is if you’ve heard an Atari Teenage Riot album or a band similar then you know what I am talking about. You would also have to agree that this is a sound that you either love or hate, there is no in between where you think it is just OK. This music is most certainly emotionally and politically driven as Ambassador 21, like ATR before them, seem to be pissed off at the world and at today’s governments as a lot of their songs focus on revolution. Ambassador 21 is also a member of the organization M.A.C.O.S. (Musicians Against Copyrighting Of Samples) and their tracks contain heavy doses of sampling. One stand-out example of this is the track “Ambassador,” which contains a sample of the classic Ministry track “Stigmata.” I can’t think of one album that hasn’t used it at least a little. If there were no more sampling then you could kiss goodbye all movie and video clips that make so many songs all the more interesting. Every band should be a member of this organization! Anyway, AKCIJA is loud, hard and brain-smashing with its death metal sound that has been given a shot of electronic adrenaline and then bashed around by a noise-infused drum machine. This album is not for the faint of heart as it is a rollercoaster of aggression that is unparalleled by many other bands.

“From Belarus with hate” were the first words I read when opening the jewel case to AMBASSADOR 21’s latest contribution to the digital hardcore scene, “Akcija.” You will definitely feel the rage and “hate” when listening to this album, even the instruments sound harsh and riot bound. I’ve always loved AMBASSADOR 21’s music and this album has flown right off the charts in my book. “Akcija” couldn’t possibly be any better than what it is, it’ll be interesting to see if A21 will ever be able to put as much effort, power, emotion, rage, force and supremacy into any other album they put out in the years to come. This is going to be a hard album for them to top! A21 is one of those bands that you wish would break out of the underground scene and start their own revolution of music. There’s lots of bands that “sound” like A21 (just as they sound like some other bands), but they just don’t have the passion and balls to take it to the extreme. For A21, music is their life, they state it over and over again in their press and interviews, but it truly shows through their music, just listen to this album for an example if you need one. Who cares if A21 doesn’t sing in English 100% of the time, they could be singing in Japanese for all I care, its the way they piece their music together that makes it brilliant. All their influences, all their rage, all their passion, all the buzzing of electronic noise, all the chaos of instruments and the catchiness of the beats mixed into one bundle called a song – this is what makes AMBASSADOR 21 great – their music. I hope this band produces this type of top notch quality work well into the future, for this is one of the most brilliant, unique and defiant albums I’ve ever heard. Rock on A21!!