cabaret voltaire 1
killer band. everyone just checks Red Mecca which features their most toxic and unapproachable style. they did some music before that point, amateur/stupid opinions guide below |
| 1 |  | cabaret voltaire
Extended Play
little mantras with tuneless interjections & despond lyrics. drum machine so processed that it sounds like it's quacking... massive echo and delay on everything |
| 2 | | Cabaret Voltaire
Extended Play
"Talkover" - industrocosmic two-step; "Here She Comes Now" - sarcasm aimed at the 60s; "Do the Mussolini-Headkick" - like if alexei sayle was in throbbing gristle; "The Set Up" - what atmospheric bm sounded like in 1978 |
| 3 |  | Cabaret VolTAIRE
The Living Legends
(then they're on a compilation I can't find on sput called "A Factory Sample" which has other industrial/post-punk nerds on and also a bad musical comedian...) "Baader-Meinhof" - ye monologuing saxophone druid; "Sex in Secret" - a haunted athletics stadium in the UAE |
| 4 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
Nag Nag Nag / Is That Me (Finding Someone at the D
a single and their famous tune for a while. post-punk but the seventh meaning of the term which denotes industro-psychedelic tantrum classic punk rock recorded as wrong as possible and it's funny because they do silver machine way better than anyone ever did silver machine but it's whiny northener music now. insanely classic while being fucking annoying which is one of the guarantees you get with early cabs; "Is That Me" - the doctor who theme if doctor who wasn't really in a hurry |
| 5 | | Cabaret Voltaire
The Living Legends
(then they have another extended single 7" effigy called Silent Command and the drum machine is STILL just going bunk unk unk unk bunk unk unk unk bunk unk unk unk, it sounds more like dub reggae than ever. if it was done coherently it'd be appropriationcore, joe strummer shaking his ass, but it's just a funny deconstructed mess; b-side is a snatch from a larger improvised soundtrack) |
| 6 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
Mix-Up
first album. recording quality shoots up in some ways ie bass audible, lyrics audible and they start filling the space with more poisonously weird instrumentation, primitive synth and sampling, making the experience more varied but also shriller and harder to take. this comes two years earlier than einsturzende neubauten "kollaps", something irrelevant i decided to type here for fun |
| 7 | | Cabaret Voltaire
mix-up
"Kirlian Photograph" - loading a cymbal sample into yr keyboard and playing it from the highest key to the lowest in order; "No Escape" - more sarcasm aimed at the sixties; "Fourth Shot" - guitar-infatuated bad utterance zone; "Heaven and Hell" - julian cope kinda stuff |
| 8 | | cabaret voltaIRE
mIX-up
"Eyeless Sight" is Fourth Shot again, kinda; "Photophobia" - dada-miserable vic reeves poem; "On Every Other Street" - ladies and gentlemen, jaaaaaaaaaames browwwwwwwwwn; "Expect Nothing" - it's still funny how at this point they just despise relative tonality and all their beats sound like default shit off the vl-tone, but they manage to gibber so uniquely; "Capsules" - kinda a cabaret voltaire SHREDS vid song |
| 9 | | Cabaret Voltaire
The Living Legends
(another single called Seconds Too Late. i didn't really preserve the precise release order of all this stuff, just kept it in year order. a-side funks conceptually; b-side has that Residents feel where it sounds like they're making fun of every single song that's ever been formative to your taste at once) |
| 10 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
Three Mantras
a long EP, huge tracks. A side is kraut rock updated, the beat holding steady but the simple progression and the lead fighting everything else creating massive amounts of pressure, discomfort, expectation and exhaustion. it helps that the phrase "Soon to be exhausted" gets spoken in the lyrics early, repeatedly and often; side B is less percussive, more of a come down, the less regimented half of the piece. needless to say this is fucking classic and essential |
| 11 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
The Voice of America
second album. bafflingly opaque extension of the first while morphing into their Red Mecca modus. the main advancements seem to be an extra dose of patience and guitars that now sound less like guitars. just as drenched in honey, venom and delay but now with the suspicion that the atonality is deliberate instead of happenstance. not piecy enough to divide into songs. Don't Piece Me |
| 12 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
1974 - 1976
(a retrospective of their earliest shit, released through Throbbing Gristle's thing, it sounds like it) this is kinda before the switch flipped, provocative proto-industrial which imo gets better when punk gets time to latch on |
| 13 | | Cabaret Voltaire
The Living Legends
(a single called Jazz the Glass which sounds like the rembrants getting mercy killed; b-side contains ork) |
| 14 | | Cabaret Voltaire
The Living Legends
(an EP-length 12'' disc called Eddie's Out/Walls of Jericho, with two incredible subdued tunes I think were written around the same time as Red Mecca because they contain that same aggravating whine pseudosmaxomophone and phaser on the drum machine. this is really good but it doesn't bop, or rock, and it's not thoughtful and you can't lose yourself in it and it's not about you and it's too annoying to be ambient but too instrument driven to be concrete and is arguably very unsatisfying, but also gorgeous and parallel worldly. five stars) |
| 15 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
Eight Crepuscule Tracks
(this is the short EP "3 Crepuscule Tracks" really) signalling last gasp of the Vol Cab phase which demands the drum machine has to sound like hand percussion... entire vocal and jazz performance samples getting more momentum in their music than the sad dystopia limbic system adenoid shmeffield drill sargent vox and it's kind of sad to see them shifting, in a way, but the quest for satisfying dance music begins after the exorcism of Red Mecca) "Your Agent Man" - holy fuck the drum box has a snare we are NEVER looking back |
| 16 |  | Cabaret Voltaire
Red Mecca
five stars. one stars. ceremony where you let yourself get bitten by a snake. "A Thousand Ways" is the best song of the century |
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