CABARET VOLTAIRE - MIX-UP @ 45

 

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.

CABARET VOLTAIRE - THE CRACKDOWN @ 40

Celebrating its 40th anniversary today is the fifth studio LP from Industrial music pioneers, Cabaret Voltaire, with The Crackdown being released on August 18th of 1983. It's the album which saw the band take a decisive turn away from overt experimentation and fundamentally lay the cornerstones of what would become known as "EBM" (electronic body music). Its funky electro-grooves became the signposts for bands like Font 242, Front Line Assembly and countless others.

Recorded late in 1982 at Trident Studios, London, England, the band were now paired down to a duo, with Chris Watson having left part-way through the recording of their previous album, 2x45. With Watson's "Musique concrète" contributions now absent, the group leaned more into the latent groovy essence which resided in its remaining members. It was also the era when MIDI based electronic drum machines and sequencers were making their mark on the electronic music scene and the Cabs were on the bleeding edge of incorporating that tightly synchronized syncopation into their music. The wobbly sync of analogue gear was gone and the rhythms subsequently became tough and tense.

The album was produced by the band themselves, along with Mark Ellis (aka, Flood), who would become a stalwart producer in the genre of electronic pop, working with artists like Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, New Order and Orbital, among many others. The result was a genre defining shift from a band which had come from oblique avant-garde obscurity into now setting themselves up to lead a new revolution on the underground dance floors of the UK, Europe and North America. Taylor Swift would never be the same!
 

CABARET VOLTAIR - 2 X 45 @ 40

 

Released in May of 1982, Cabaret Voltaire’s fourth studio album, 2x45, is marking 40 years on the shelf this month. It was the transitional album between their early experimental work and their more dance floor friendly fare which would dominate their career going forward. It also marked a downsizing of the band’s core members from a trio to a duo as Chris Watson left the group half way through its production. The first disc of the set was recorded with Chris at the group’s Sheffield Western Works studio in October of 1981 while the second disc was recorded without Watson at Pluto Studios, Manchester, in February of 1982.

The title for the album is a direct reference to its original format, being a set of two 45 RPM 12” EPs enclosed in a black textured foldout card stock sleeve with Neville Brody graphics concealed on the interior. As the album focuses on a set of long rhythmic tracks, the higher fidelity afforded by the format offered optimum sound quality for the material. Though they were decidedly moving into a funkier groove, the music beyond the beat felt more “jazz” inspired, though still thick with the group’s experimental discordance. They hadn’t quite landed in the “EBM” zone which would define their next LP, The Crackdown, but the remixed single version of Yashar by John Robie would create a direct bridge to that era. For 2x45, however, the rhythms are primarily provided by real drums and the use of electronics is surprisingly limited.

Because the album moved so far outside the “industrial” framework of its predecessor, Red Mecca, and didn’t quite arrive at their eventual EBM destination, it tends to be overlooked by both of the band’s fan camps for their early vs later output. Initial reviews for the album saw it as a lesser success than Red Mecca, but the benefit of hindsight has shown that what the group were doing was still very much outside what anyone else were up to at the time and still on the cutting edge of experimental pop. As such, it remains one of their most idiosyncratic releases.

CABARET VOLTAIRE - RED MECCA @ 40

 

Released in September of 1981, Cabaret Voltaire’s third full length studio album, Red Mecca, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.

Before becoming dance floor staples in the mid 1980s Industrial/EBM club scene with their breakthrough album, The Crackdown, Cabaret Voltaire were pursuing a strange brand of discordant pseudo-free-jazz funkiness that drifted between fractured syncopated grooves and flat out noise. The pinnacle of that strand of their early career is centered on the Red Mecca album. It’s where they managed find the perfect balance between accessible grooves and atonal dysphoria. While their earlier efforts had their moments of genius, they also had experimental misfires or moments that just came across as merely academically interesting, though not necessarily “enjoyable” or emotionally engaging. Red Mecca offers up a much more consistent collection of tracks that straddle the eccentricities while clinging firmly to the rhythmic core driving the music forward.

Thematically, the group were very much influenced by their recent tour of the US and the looming totalitarianism evident in the American Christian Evangelical movement which formed a counterpoint against the erupting fundamentalism of Islamic states like Afghanistan and Iran. How prophetic is it that, here we are, four decades later, and we’re still witnessing these ideologies thrashing against each other on the world stage with the US even more threatened by religious fundamentalism than ever before. In that sense, the album’s themes have remained just as vital and relevant as ever.

This was the last full album to feature the founding trio of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson. Though Chris would be around for the beginning of the 2x45 sessions, he’d be gone half way through working on that album, which was a record where the first steps towards more conventional dance floor grooves would be emphasized. As such, Red Mecca is the natural end point for the evolution of the band from its early experimental roots to their fullest sophistication within the avant-garde musical arena. It’s an album of spiky beauty and razor sharp charms.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE HAFLER TRIO, SEVEN HOURS SLEEP

The first time I encountered The Hafler Trio was in 1985 on the L.A.Y.L.A.H. Records compilation album, The Fight Is On, a record which deserves its own acknowledgement for its influence.  The track, "Blanket" Level Approach, was really no more than the sounds of waves on the shore with some strange electronic tones mixed in, but there was something so compelling and enigmatic about it.  The credits on the inner sleeve included Chris Watson, whom I knew from his involvement with Cabaret Voltaire.  The other two in the "trio", Andrew M. McKenzie & Dr. Edward Moolenbeek, were unfamiliar to me.   As it was, the track was interesting enough that I started to look for H3O releases to pick up, the first being Seven Hours Sleep.

The double disc LP consists of various field recordings, edited, processed and augmented with unidentifiable electronic sounds and drones.  Bits of conversation, nature sounds, people playing sports in reverberating auditoriums, all mixed together into something which purported to be "scientifically" motivated research.  You see, there was an unusual dimension to all these works as was indicated from the compilation appearance, through this release and their previous LP release, Bang!  An Open Letter, which my roommate had picked up. 

During these inaugural years of the project, it was all framed in the context of having been inspired by the work of the late, mysterious scientist, Robert Spridgeon, as preserved and documented via the Robol Sound Laboratories facility.  Releases included booklets and texts regarding these experiments, which involved looking at practical applications for sound, some of which could be considered of military value.  There were reports of government interference and secrecy and a whole mythology around Spridgeon's career and fate.  Dr. Moolenbeek, an older gentleman, was purported to be a former associate of Spridgeon, thus providing the link to the present with the past.  One of my friends even wrote to their PO box and received additional printed materials detailing the history of Robol and its theories and the controversies surrounding them and the people involved. 

Of course, we all ate these conspiracy theories up as they were a fascinating conception and lent all these products an air of the "forbidden" and "dangerous".  It wasn't until much later that the whole angle was revealed to be a complete fabrication.  Dr. Moolenbeek never existed, neither did Spridgeon or Robol.  It was all ingeniously crafted and concocted by McKenzie and Watson as an experiment in misinformation and misdirection.  Once I got over the initial indignation of having bought into this ruse, I had to admit that the completeness and attention to detail in manufacturing it all was remarkable and it was an object lesson in the power of persuasion and plausible distraction.  It illustrated the ability of artists to conjure their own realities. 

In 1988, Chris Watson left H3O for a lauded career as a natural sound recordist for the BBC and, later, released many acclaimed solo albums of his field recordings.  McKenzie continued on with H3O until 2006, releasing dozens of challenging and thought provoking products until he changed tactics and withdrew from the mass media arena.