Released
on October 23rd, 1979, the debut LP from Cabaret Voltaire, Mix-Up,
turns 45 years old today. While it is often crude and difficult
listening, it provides a critical intersection between post-punk and the
emerging Industrial music scene that was happening with bands like
Throbbing Gristle.
Taking their
name from the short-lived Dadaist nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland,
founded in 1916, The band had begun to take shape around 1972, with
Chris Watson, a fan of Brian Eno, looking to explore the creation of
electronics based music without the use of traditional instrumentation.
His training as a telephone engineer enabled him to work on building
home made gear, like oscillators and modified tape machines for creating
loops. He soon encountered fellow Eno devotee, Richard H. Kirk, and
the two began working together on their sound experiments, many of which
can now be heard on the retrospective box set, Methodology '74 - '78:
Attic Tapes. Kirk also began to introduce some traditional instruments,
like guitar and clarinet. With the addition of Stephen Mallinder in
late 1973, who contributed bass guitar and vocals, the trio began to
move gradually towards something almost resembling regular music,
incorporating drums and drum machines, and electronic organs.
The
trio also began performing live, with their initial gigs being not much
more than sonic pranks. The trio would deploy to various parts of
Sheffield with their portable tape recorders and play their experimental
compositions in places as diverse as public toilets and on the streets
from loudspeakers on the top of a friend's van. This raucous attitude
followed the band onstage to great effect; their first live concert in
May 1975 ended in a fight between the band and the audience that sent
Mallinder to hospital.
As the
band began to settle into a more conventional onstage presentation,
performing actual songs with identifiable structures, they found
themselves frequently opening for bands like Joy Division or TG. This
got them enough exposure that they were approached with a few different
offers for record contracts. Factory Records had come knocking, and TG
had approached them about being on their Industrial Records imprint,
where they would actually release a cassette of early works in 1980.
But it was Rough Trade who sealed the deal by offering the band a 4
track Revox tape recorder in lieu of an advance.
In
1977, Watson financed the establishment of the band's own recording
studio on the second floor of a building called the Western Works on
Portobello Street in Sheffield. The "Western Works" studio served as the
band's studio for many years as well as providing a social gathering
spot for the local Sheffield scene. Western Works produced some of the
earliest recordings of pioneering local bands including Clock DVA, The
Human League, and New Order.
By
the time the group got to the point of recording Mix-Up, their most
extreme experiments were somewhat behind them, but what they were
creating was far from mainstream, incorporating atonal sounds against
their often broken sounding rhythms. Like Kraftwerk before them, their
early sound is entirely separate from the slick electronic dance music
that would ultimately become their stock-in-trade. But while they
retained a sharp experimental edge, there were always clear indications
that the group had a funkiness buried in their DNA that was just waiting
to come to the fore.
With the
release of Mix-Up, the band were met with mostly negative criticism,
with their sound being a tough cookie to swallow for most folks. Its
brittle distortion and intensity made for some challenging listening,
offering punters little respite from its grind and grit. The group's
Nag Nag Nag single, released prior to the LP, had managed to sell
remarkably well, and despite the overall critical aversion to the group,
journalists like Andy Gill still saw their potential. He wrote of the
band in the June 27th, 1978, edition of NME, "I firmly believe Cabaret
Voltaire will turn out to be one of the most important new bands to
achieve wider recognition this year. Wait and see". Subsequently, "Nag
Nag Nag" sold 10,000 copies.
Of
course, this was just an early chapter in the story of a band that
would go through some striking evolutionary changes over the years of
its existence, from abstract experimentation to dominating the dance
floors of alternative nightclubs throughout the next decade. Connecting
those dots may not seem intuitive at first glance, but when you put it
all together, it's a fascinating story, one which essentially beings
with Mix-Up.
