Cabaret Voltaire

[Funcrusher]

Due to overwhelming demand from forum poster Johnny YesNo, a thread to discuss Sheffield's finest. I'm starting this while I remember, and can't think of anything very incisive to say about them at the mo, but doubtless Johnny will have some interesting contributions, and NoSleep is also a fan of their earlier works.

[Roy*Mallard]

Can't bear the thought of this thread lying dormant. I honestly haven't listened to the Cabs for about 5 years, but that's only because all my cd's are back in the UK and i have always forgotten to retrieve/flash drive them on past visits home. About 20 years ago, when i was fast becoming a major TG/PTV/Coil head, bands like the Cabs, Foetus, Test Department, 23 Skidoo, Whitehouse etc were all kind of lumped in together in a mass of late 70's/early 80's experimental music, sort of a second string to the peak that, for me, was TG. Even though most of these bands were only really good for 2 or 3 decent albums, before re-evaluating their mojo or becoming stale, there were some really stunning peaks. Cabaret Voltaire issuing quite a few of their own. All of their early albums (up to and including 2X45) with Chris Watson, now better known for his sound recording, are superb and well worth seeking out if you like late 70's/early 80's experimental music. When Watson left in 1981 (to join Tyne Tees Television and eventually form the enigma that is/was The Hafler Trio with Andrew Mckenzie, whom themselves released a great deal of albums, both sublime and utterly dull - tho do check out the following: Kill The King, The Hafler Trio Play The Hafler Trio, How To Reform Mankind, Dislocation and the compilations Walk Gently Through The Gates Of Joy and All That Rises Must Converge - not all featuring Watson, if truth be told) the Cabs decided to become ever so slightly more mainstream and more danceable. Half of 2X45 was the beginning of that and it was hammered home with the likes of The Crackdown and Micro Phonies, the 2 albums that followed. They still remained cutting edge, just a little more accessible. I'd say that everything they did up to and including 1985's The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord (a wonderful album) was well worth hearing, but after that ..... er .... don't bother. 

Also worth checking out is Methodology, which collects music recorded before their debut release, from 1974 to 1978. Three discs of honks, skrunks and good, honest noise. I think it may be out of print now though, unfortunately.

Cabaret Voltaire were part of the roster at Some Bizarre in the early-mid 80's, a roster that also included the likes of Psychic TV, Test Department, Einstürzende Neubauten, Coil, Swans, Foetus, Marc Almond etc etc. Quite incredible when you think about it now. The Cab's track on the superb Some Bizarre compilation album, If You Can't Please Yourself, You Can't Please Your Soul, Product Patrol, encapsulates what they were about at that time.

[Johnny Yesno]

Due to overwhelming demand from forum poster Johnny YesNo, a thread to discuss Sheffield's finest. I'm starting this while I remember, and can't think of anything very incisive to say about them at the mo, but doubtless Johnny will have some interesting contributions, and NoSleep is also a fan of their earlier works.

Yikes! Sorry I took so long to respond.

What NoSleep was saying in the other thread about their early work being lo-fi is true but possibly slightly misleading. One thing that lured me in to their sound world was the high production values. Sure, in many of their earlier works, the sounds had a "toy" quality but the overall production was by and large top drawer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUYO5o0IRM8

Theirs was the first music I got into that I couldn't really pin down what it meant. I had previously been listening to music that was pretty straightforward in its opposition to pop, but the Cabs seemed to undermine even that notion of meaning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pIuGi2uNng

I don't think this ambivalence means that they set out to make music that was difficult to listen to. Their sound was evidence of a love of sound for its own sake, and I guess that's where its meaning lies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA_4lY9kjQY

Where some of their peers went dark and controversial the Cabs' music was pretty much always laced with a sense of humour. Even when they used samples of Charles Manson or racist Christian fundamentalists they managed to choose stuff that had a cartoon quality about it. It was the sound of the voices as much as what they were saying that was important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqlJ5HuTqZk

I guess I also got into CV because I thought they sounded futuristic. In retrospect, they seem to have got less futuristic as their career progressed. I still like much of the music they made when they "went digital", though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipfvPziaR5U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fdSi_8ZgJE

[NoSleep]

What NoSleep was saying in the other thread about their early work being lo-fi is true but possibly slightly misleading.

How about "DIY"? It's engineering in the real sense of the word; "working out a way to do something." And probably stumbling across some other stuff, in the process, that is equally useful.

[Johnny Yesno]

How about "DIY"? It's engineering in the real sense of the word; "working out a way to do something." And probably stumbling across some other stuff, in the process, that is equally useful.

Oh yes. Certainly DIY. They really knew how to get the most out of their studio. They also understood the limitations of their equipment on a compositional level. The rhythm box in Kneel to the Boss is incredibly dated yet there's something about it's presentation in that piece of music that not only breathed new life into it at the time but still makes it sound contemporary.

[NoSleep]

Does anybody know if Three Mantras was labelled incorrectly when it was first issued on vinyl? Western Mantra sounds decidedly eastern, and Eastern Mantra is a pounding electro-dubfest. I have a later version that flips the titles, but seems wrong after decades being the other way round.

[Johnny Yesno]

Does anybody know if Three Mantras was labelled incorrectly when it was first issued on vinyl? Western Mantra sounds decidedly eastern, and Eastern Mantra is a pounding electro-dubfest. I have a later version that flips the titles, but seems wrong after decades being the other way round.

Mine has the drone track labeled as Eastern and the guitar track labeled as Western. But, "Where is the third mantra?", as it says by the runout groove on The Voice of America.

[303]

Johnny YesNo is getting a Redux 2CD / 2DVD issue in November.

http://www.factmag.com/2011/09/01/cabaret-voltaires-johnny-yesno-re-imagined-for-mute-box-set/

[Funcrusher]

The trailer for the new remake didn't look all that great. Might give me an opportunity to see the original which I've still never seen.