Only Solitaire: G. Starostin's Record Reviews, Reloaded c intro Notes
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- Mix-Up
- The Voice Of America
- Red Mecca
- 2x45 (1982) 1) Breathe Deep; 2) Yashar; 3) Protection; 4) War Of Nerves (T.E.S.); 5) Wait And Shuffle; 6) Get Out Of My Face. Actually, this , rather than Red Mecca
- The Crackdown
THE VOICE OF AMERICA (1980) 1) The Voice Of America / Damage Is Done; 2) Partially Submerged; 3) Kneel To The Boss; 4) Premonition; 5) This Is Entertainment; 6) If The Shadows Could March; 7) Stay Out Of It; 8) Obsession; 9) News From Nowhere; 10) Messages Received. A little better produced than Mix-Up, perhaps, but not much different in mood, style, or effect, The Voice Of America is a fairly distorted idea of America, I would say, as seen from the perspective of this ever-so-English band. If we are to believe in this, «America» in 1980 was a post-apocalyptic half-bore, half-nightmare, a gray, desolate place populated almost exclusively by robotic mutants communicating through digital signals and tape loops. There would hardly be any place for a Prince or a Michael Jackson or even an Olivia Newton-John in such an America — then again, we could always make the argument that Cabaret Voltaire, with their eye in the sky, were able to see right through all these skins and quickly get to the essence. Anyway, The Voice Of America is not nearly as unlistenable as some sources would have you believe. Ever so often, a track will start out with a blast of noise that seems to be coming out of a freshly bombed electrical substation — but then it quickly subsides in favor of yet another cozy little robotic groove, going pssht-pssht (that's «C.V. soft rock») or thwack-thwack («C. V. hard rock») or twang-twang (that's «C.V. impersonation of Australian aboriginal music»), with enough diversity to keep you believing that it is not the exact same psycho-image that never stops flowing through their brains while they're busy getting on tape. Whether this is a correct belief, I am not sure — in the end, all these recordings still seem to serve the same purpose. The band only becomes truly unlistenable when it abandons its rhythmic base to make room for some free-form improvisation — ʽPartially Submergedʼ sounds like a rusty old see-saw swinging back and forth, while a pair of aspiring, but tonedeaf sax players are practicing like mad within the confines of the same abandoned playground. Not as nasty as it could be, but I can promise you some fairly ugly sounds here; the rest of the record is far more musical, sometimes even hummable, even if you have to wait to the very end to get to the only actual «song» — ʽMessages Receivedʼ. That one would seem to be a conscious imitation of classic Joy Division style, but with shitty distorted guitar noise replacing discernible melody. Everything else is mildly cool — somewhat tame by the old Krautrock standards, and frequently spoiled by the vocals (I think the album would have worked better as a completely instrumental set, but I guess those brutal «young punk» intonations were very much a genre convention around 1980), but not without its own bit of decadent-robotic charm. However, you can still feel they are in their boot camp stage at the moment: they have the style all figured out, but none of the compositions have any sense of purpose — mostly, it's just experimentation for the sake of it, a useful, but not too artistically relevant exploration of new studio possibilities. For instance, on ʽNews From Nowhereʼ they discover that they can imitate racing cars with their instruments, and then proceed to do exactly that for two and a half minutes, like little kids who just discovered a bunch of awesome buttons. Kinda cool, but that's what the word «dated» is for. Another short track is called ʽIf The Shadows Could Marchʼ — to be honest, sounds more like ʽIf The Shadows Could Trotʼ, but there's no sense in arguing over associative thinking; the important thing is, it's fifty-five seconds of not-too-threatening electronic pulses, and that's that. The good news is that most of the stuff, as usual, is danceable, and even today you could safely use this stuff at any electronic rave party with a retro fetish. But the bad news is that even with all the grooves and the toe-tapping, they are still boring, and their appeal is at best purely intellectual. Unless you make a point of collecting early Eighties' electronics and avantagarde stuff, The Voice Of America is perfectly skippable. 1974-76 (1980) 1) The Dada Man; 2) Ooraseal; 3) A Sunday Night In Biot; 4) In Quest Of The Unusual; 5) Do The Snake; 6) Fade Crisis; 7) Doubled Delivery; 8) Venusian Animals; 9) The Outer Limits; 10) She Loved You. Now that the band was a firmly established underground act, the time was deemed ripe for digging into their back catalog — they'd made their first recordings in the mid-Seventies, but had neither a proper distributor back then nor a lot of people who'd listen. Actually, even in 1980 the only label that'd carry this stuff was the Throbbing Gristle-owned Industrial Records, who only released it in cassette form; not until 1992 did it get a CD release. And I don't have to tell you the reason why — this stuff is far more hardcore than even Mix-Up, let alone everything that followed. These, indeed, are industrial experiments that predate the band's fascination with dance music, meaning that you are going to get the same bleeps, beeps, bells, and whistles, but with a «factory setting» rather than «club setting». Actually, there is a rhythmic base to most of the tracks, either provided by a very faintly ticking drum machine or by the synthesized «melody loops» themselves — the only thing that provides some structure and order — but it does take a fairly wide understanding of music to agree that this is music (not that it is in any way more hardcore than Throbbing Gristle, but it does make everything they'd done after that look like a pathetic sellout program by comparison). A few of the tracks do dig into the musical past, posing as sneery deconstructions or futuristic tributes: ʽDo The Snakeʼ plays like a robot-engineered parody on an early Sixties dance craze (although the mock-idiotic vocals are more in the vein of the B-52's: apparently, at that early hyper-experimental stage Cabaret Voltaire still had a lighter sense of humor than in the classic days to come), and ʽShe Loved Youʼ recites the lyrics to ʽShe Loves Youʼ in a slow, dark whisper, as the electronics hum and whirr around you with the predictable reliability of old, creaky equipment in an antiquated factory. Does it all make sense? Not to my ears, it doesn't. But it does sound like a logical precursor to Autechre and all those other trendy Nineties' electronic bands — whose main achievement, let's face it, was to simply harness the technology in a way in which Cabaret Voltaire in the mid-1970's could not have harnessed it, without all that comfy digital software. They do try their best: many of these tracks are quite inventive, with lengthy stretches of attempted development as synthesized tones pulsate, grumble, burp, whine, explode, implode, chase each other and fade away on some of the ugliest frequencies you've ever heard (ʽIn Quest Of The Unusualʼ — indeed; ʽThe Outer Limitsʼ — two minutes of shrill ear-destruction and six more minutes of either a rusty metal fan twirling around or broken automatic doors closing and opening). But, as usual, there may be problems afoot when you start thinking of this as Art, and looking for those particular doors of perception that may or may not have been opened by your exposure to it. At least on a purely objective basis this stuff seems innovative in the context of the time, when electronics were still largely used as a replacement for traditional instruments rather than a means to completely redefine our approach to music — something in which Cabaret Voltaire had a very active hand. But they didn't even hold on to this style for very long: much like Kraftwerk, whose least accessible records were their earliest ones, by the time they'd gotten a record deal they were already willing to compromise. And although I am not quite sure this made their music «better», I am at least grateful to them that they decided to make «dance-oriented» (sort of) tunes out of these factory puffs and huffs, instead of retaining their throbbing gristly integrity for the remainder of their career. RED MECCA (1981) 1) A Touch Of Evil; 2) Sly Doubt; 3) Landslide; 4) A Thousand Ways; 5) Red Mask; 6) Split Second; 7) Black Mask; 8) Spread The Virus; 9) A Touch Of Evil (reprise). Prior to Red Mecca, the band had released an EP called Three Mantras — a musical representation of their views on religious fundamentalism, Christian and Islamic, by means of a ʽWestern Mantraʼ and an ʽEastern Mantraʼ respectively (the liner notes jokingly apologized for the lack of the promised third mantra and explained that the record was underpriced to make up for that). However, even though each of the tracks ran for twenty minutes, they felt this wasn't nearly enough, and eventually followed it up with a longer, more «comprehensive» album, aptly called Red Mecca so they could offend everybody. Frickin' hatemongers. This is often seen as one of the highest points in the band's career — probably because it is the first Cabaret Voltaire album which feels like a self-assured statement, rather than just another incoherent bunch of some-of-it-works-and-some-of-it-oh-me-oh-my experiments. It also feels better produced than before, even though they were using the same studio in Sheffield as always (maybe they got better insulation on the windows or fixed some of the wiring, I have no idea). Other than that, though, it's just another Cabaret Voltaire album, meaning that its sounds, at best, are interesting and curious rather than «grappling». The record symbolically opens with an industrial/avantgarde reworking of Henry Mancini's opening theme for Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil — a movie that did not deal with religious issues as such, if I remember it correctly, but did dabble around in various sick corners of the human nature; and it is good to have that hint, because the band's drab, morose soundscapes aren't exactly reminiscent of «evil caused by mankind» on their own. If I knew nothing about the sources of the recording, I would have regarded it... well, I still regard it as essentially the musical equivalent of taking a slow, uncomfortable, stuffy ride on some creaky underground train through a long row of caves, tunnels, grottoes, and mines populated by freaks, mutant dwarves, and methadone-addled incorporeal ghosts of Nazi criminals. The «danceability» is faithfully preserved and even enhanced by a more musical than ever before use of brass instruments, but this still is no music to dance to: ten and a half minutes of ʽA Thousand Waysʼ ultimately sound more like an incessant, nerve-numbing «musical flagellation», with the percussive whips making as much damage to your body as the incomprehensible vocal exhortations do to your soul, than something to dance to (and besides, it's pretty hard to dance while being whipped). The bass groove of ʽSly Doubtʼ is as funky as anything, but when it is coupled with a synthesizer «lead melody» that resembles airplanes flying over your head, your sense of rhythm will be confused and shattered anyway. Same thing with the antithetical pairing of ʽRed Maskʼ and ʽBlack Maskʼ, except that guitars and keyboards on the former sound like malfunctioning electric drills, and on the latter like the soundtrack to an arcade space shooter. Unfortunately, in one respect Red Mecca remains undistinguishable from any other Cabaret Voltaire release: it is hard to get seriously excited over any of these tracks, even if they sound cleaner, tighter, and imbued with sharper symbolical purpose. Memorable musical (or even «quasi-musical») themes are absent (the shrill, whining riff of ʽLandslideʼ is probably the closest they get, but even that one is nothing compared to what a Joy Division or a Cure could do with such an idea), «energy level» is not even a viable parameter, and there is almost no development — ʽA Thousand Waysʼ, after ten minutes (years) of that flagellation, leaves us exactly where it found us, and so do most of the shorter tracks as well. This is why, in the end, I cannot permit myself to give out a thumbs up rating here: important as this album could be upon release, it does not seem to have properly stood the test of time. Even its symbolism has to be properly decoded with the aid of additional sources, and even if you do decode it, it is hardly a guarantee that from then on you'll be wanting to stick the CD under your pillow every night. It's interesting — but it's also boring. Which is a very basic characteristics of the band as a whole, of course, but since Red Mecca is often highlighted as «the place to start» with these guys, be warned: it's not too different from everything else they've done, and unless you've heard no experimental electronic music whatsoever post-1981, it's not highly likely to provoke a revelation. For historical reasons, though, it's worth getting to know. 2x45 (1982) 1) Breathe Deep; 2) Yashar; 3) Protection; 4) War Of Nerves (T.E.S.); 5) Wait And Shuffle; 6) Get Out Of My Face. Actually, this, rather than Red Mecca, may be the band's most interesting contribution to the musical scene of the early Eighties. On this splice of two recording sessions, which was also the last CB album to feature Chris Watson as a member, the band shifts the balance over from the industrial / experimental shadings to the dance beats — this is a very club-oriented recording — without, however, toning down the overall gray weirdness of it all. The result is a return to their «shamanistic ritual» schtick, but in a more accessible and grappling way than ever before: six lengthy «art-dance» grooves which throw everything into the melting pot (funk, jazz, drone, Eastern influences, post-punk, industrial, you name it), and sort of get away with it. Like Red Mecca, this here is the sound of a self-assured band that has, by and large, already found what it was looking for — and is now trying to prove to us that the search has not been in artistic vain. ʻBreathe Deepʼ has the skeleton of a modern electrofunk groove, but the shrill, dissonant wail of electronically treated guitars and wind instruments (not just saxes, but even a clarinet part!) is inherited from the band's avantgarde past and does a good job of creating an atmosphere of insane hustle-bustle: think Panic At The Factory or something like that. Totally danceable, but sonically ugly and depressing, even if the band's traditional weaknesses still show through (namely, any of these tracks would have had much more impact if they tried building up these atmospheres rather than spilling everything out at once). There is a substantial element of diversity, too: after ʻBreathe Deepʼ, ʻYasharʼ crosses the Cabaret Voltaire aesthetics with Near Eastern rhythmic and melodic elements, then ʻProtectionʼ goes into a happier sort of dance music where funk-pop guitar riffs are being offset by mad sax wailings, then ʻWar Of Nervesʼ slows things down to allow for some fairly poisonous avantgarde-guitar pyrotechnics, and eventually it all culminates in the 13-minute long ʻGet Out Of My Faceʼ, the loudest and most brash part of the ritual, sort of this band's equivalent of the Velvets' ʻSister Rayʼ, only with a larger pool of equipment and a little more compassion for people's ears. All of these tracks are united by a single aesthetic style, but they have different sub-atmospheres, and this helps make the record cooler, though, honestly, it is still hard to get truly wowed by the experience. But at least with all these blaring saxes and guitar/synth interplay, you can't really argue that they are doing something that has since been rendered obsolete — 2x45 is a fairly unique mash-up of electronics, drone, and (not-so)-avantgarde jazz that is not afraid to cross genre borders without properly belonging to any of them. Honestly, I believe it's difficult not to be at least somewhat impressed by the results achieved here. As dance music, 2x45 can only be of interest nowadays for retro-futuristic, steampunkish parties; but I think it still has a bit of «mind-opening» potential, particularly in the way it mixes live instruments with tape manipulation. And this is the first time, I believe, where I would actually grant a thumbs up rating to a Cabaret Voltaire album — not because I was emotionally and intellectually rewarded for making an effort, but rather because I didn't have to make too much of an effort to not be emotionally and intellectually rewarded, if you get my meaning here. HAI! (1982) 1) Walls Of Kyoto; 2) 3 Days Monk; 3) Yashar (version); 4) Over & Over; 5) Diskono; 6) Taxi Music (version). The strange fascination of Cabaret Voltaire with live albums is explainable in two ways: (a) much of their material was actually developed on the stage, and some of it even never left the stage (Hai! is a good illustration — three of its songs would only be released in studio versions after the album, and two more are only available on the album); (b) they actually believed that music properly «happens» as interaction between performer and audience, so that it's better to release a poor quality live album than a glossed-up studio tape. Well, sometimes, at least. Stylistically, Hai! is very close to 2x45, but with one major difference: in place of Chris Watson, the band now features Alan Fish, trading in their «tape manipulator» for a real live drummer. The difference is impossible not to notice — particularly when you listen to the old and the new ʻYasharʼ back-to-back; the song now features fewer electronic effects, but a wild tribal beat all the way through. What is better? What is closer to the «true» Cabaret Voltaire spirit? Impossible to tell for me, since my connection to the band is not really on an emotional level; but at least for the sakes of a live show, I'd say the choice of a live drummer is a wise one. All the other songs, too, feature expectable danceable grooves with dark-gray overtones, similar in mood, tempo, and tone; the only standout is ʻ3 Days Monkʼ, because of the wah-wah enhanced bassline — letting out an angry croak that is different from (and somehow feels a little more personal and communicative than) all the regular dance grooves. I guess that ʻTaxi Musicʼ is also a standout due to its sheer length (although the studio recording would be even longer), but since it does not depart too much from its starting points, 11 minutes is just asking for trouble. The bass groove can even be poppy if they wish: ʻWalls Of Kyotoʼ opens the album with a part that could be usable for every fast-moving song from Joy Division to U2, and maybe even well beyond that particular time span. But that does little to change things, as the guitars and keyboards still continue to churn out «sonic muck» more than anything else, and the only reason why Mallinder spits out those bits and pieces of broken vocals is to raise the aggression/paranoia bar. Nevertheless, the rhythm section is so tight throughout that your innate sense of rhythm might eventually placate your confused sense of melody. I do know at least this about myself — that every time ʻDiskonoʼ comes on, that simple, repetitive bassline gets me every time. In short, I give the record a thumbs up — not on an emotional level, but on some sort of primal level it has that old shamanistic charm, only this time the shamans exercise a bit more self-discipline. JOHNNY YESNO (1983) 1) Taxi Music; 2) Hallucination Sequence; 3) D.T.'s/Cold Turkey; 4) The Quarry; 5) Title Sequence; 6) Taxi Music Dub. An interesting diversion — supposedly these tracks constitute a soundtrack to a short movie by Peter Care, one of two little-known quickies he made before establishing an alternate career in the music video business (mostly for R.E.M., but remember, uh, Bananarama's ʻVenusʼ? Apparently that's him, too...). The album itself is probably longer than the movie, though, and functions as a completely autonomous Cabaret Voltaire release, significantly different in style from their usual stuff. It is also the last proper CV album with Chris Watson (who had already quit the band when the record was released, but apparently worked on all the tracks). I have no idea what the movie was about, or whether this shift in style was caused by the movie or something else, but fact is, Johnny YesNo is a little softer, a little more mysterious, and much better produced than the average Watson-era CV album. Unlike the usual releases, which largely focused on bass/guitar interplay, here the keyboards take a much more prominent position, and the bass grooves are largely absent or reduced to just one or two pouncing notes, like on ʻTaxi Musicʼ — you can dance to it if you want to, but you'll probably end up looking stupid. Kirk's guitar sound remains grumbly and murky as usual, but because of the incessant chirping of the keyboards (main riff is poppy, «lead» melodies are free-form jazzy), the atmosphere is not as depressing as could be expected. Indeed, one could picture oneself taking a slow taxi ride through some desolate cityscape, populated with cyborgs and mutants going around their business. Inoffensive, but entertaining. Entertaining, but overlong — a fourteen-minute taxi ride like that can really wear you down after a while, especially considering that the landscape stays more or less the same throughout. The shorter tracks are even stronger bent on atmosphere rather than rhythm: ʻHallucination Sequenceʼ places its faith in sonic oscillations that put your mind in some creepy alchemist lab; ʻCold Turkeyʼ is a bunch of gruesome guitar feedback that tries to reproduce the feeling as authentically as John Lennon's song of the same name (ugly, but for a reason); ʻThe Quarryʼ is the usual hustle-and-bustle set to the metronomic punch of some mighty earth-burrowing machine; and ʻTitle Sequenceʼ is basically a wild electronic Jew's harp tap-dancing on your spinal cord. No amazing sonic discoveries here, I'd think, but some pretty creative ideas, and even despite the paucity of the tracks, the diversity of these atmospheres could easily compete with the diversity of any regular CV release. Final verdict — this does belong in the proper discography; it's not merely an auxiliary detour, but quite a serious, autonomous project, not to mention one of the best produced Cabaret Voltaire albums of the early Eighties. But it will hardly be remembered as a milestone in the history of electronics, industrial music, or movie soundtracks. THE CRACKDOWN (1983) 1) 24-24; 2) In The Shadows; 3) Talking Time; 4) Animation; 5) Over And Over; 6) Just Fascination; 7) Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself); 8) Haiti; 9) Crackdown. Oh, looks like someone's tired of being unjustly confused with a guitar band. Taking their mission one step further, Cabaret Voltaire now place severe restrictions on guitar-based melodies, and plunge into the seductive waters of electronica. The Crackdown is far less noisy than their previous releases — still dark gray, still a disturbing weight on your conscious, but «cleaner» and more polished than it used to be. More sterile, too, you could say. The opening track, ʻ24-24ʼ, sounds like something Prince could have come up with — the same electrofunky type of rhythm, same drum machine sound, same approach to the mechanics of the groove to get you up and dancin' in that early Eighties style. Except Prince would have made the number all pretty and optimistic, whereas in the hands of Cabaret Voltaire all such grooves become zombie rituals, so we have unsettling lyrics ("turning out, beggars to eat me"), hushed creepy voices, keyboards that sound like marinated church organs, and an atmosphere of total coldness and detachment. These here are the roots of IDM — because if this ain't «intelligent dance music», then what is? (Then again, so was Kraftwerk, so the term is really useless). Most of what follows is the same: groove after groove, constructed out of dark electronic textures, sometimes peppered with extra ingredients (the brass section on ʻTaking Timeʼ), but always setting the same mood. Actually, mood-wise this new style may be said to work better than the old one: Mallinder's out-of-the-shadow vocals are now higher and cleaner in the mix, and throughout the entire album there's a sense of some magic eye, benevolent or malicious, watching over your shoulder, as you make the journey through the twisted alleys of evil electrofunk. Melody-wise or hook-wise, though, I am not even sure where to begin in an attempt to single out any highlights or simply to talk about the points and effects of any particular track. The closest thing to a potential «hit» on the record is probably ʻJust Fascinationʼ — as Mallinder moves one step closer to singing than hissing and hushing, the track begins to sound uncannily like classic Depeche Mode, and suddenly, Cabaret Voltaire get access to associations of deep dark sexuality that they never really had before. Bad news, though — they don't know very well how to exploit that, nor do they seem to really want to, so essentially the effort is wasted: not too many horny teenagers would probably make use of The Crackdown in 1983, as compared to Construction Time Again. Then again, Cabaret Voltaire would never stoop to becoming a real pop band, would it? To ensure that nothing of the sort ever happens, they name one of the tracks ʻWhy Kill Time When You Can Kill Yourselfʼ, setting themselves up for lawsuits of suicide propaganda — except, since this record never sold that much, nobody bothered. Actually, speaking of selling, the album did reach No. 31 on the UK charts — their highest position ever, signifying that the change in style did appeal to the masses to a certain degree. They would quickly rectify this mistake with the follow-up, but whether they were rooting for the money or not, the decision to make a dash for the trendy dance scene of 1983 was clearly conscious, and at least it did not result in them making yet another carbon copy of Red Mecca — even if I cannot say that the new results were any more exciting. Note also that most of the recent CD editions come with an attached bonus EP, called Doublevision — featuring a studio version of ʻDiskonoʼ and three other tracks that, in stark contrast to this album, are more of a noise-ambient nature (including one called ʻMoscowʼ, with resonating church bells as a distinctive feature — other than that, it seems to represent a post-nuclear war Moscow, which, come to think of it, would be quite an appropriate evil fantasy for 1983). Again, nothing too special, but curious to have as such an ardent counterpoint to the cold dance rhythms of The Crackdown proper. 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