Only Solitaire: G. Starostin's Record Reviews, Reloaded c intro Notes
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- The Crackdown
- THE COVENANT, THE SWORD AND THE ARM OF THE LORD (1985)
- Whos Afraid Of The Art Of Noise
- The Covenant
- Thumbs down
- Groovy, Laidback Nasty
- Laidback, Groovy Nasty
- INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE (1993)
- Plasticity
MICRO-PHONIES (1984) 1) Do Right; 2) The Operative; 3) Digital Rasta; 4) Spies In The Wires; 5) Theme From Earthshaker; 6) James Brown; 7) Slammer; 8) Blue Heat; 9) Sensoria. If you have not had the chance to grow up with the Three Stooges (and how could I, a simple Soviet kid, ever have had such a chance?), you might find it hard to get adjusted to their crude brand of humor later on in life. Consequently, even if Micro-Phonies, their 87th short produced in 1945 with an already ailing Curly, tends to be highly rated by veteran fans, nothing guarantees that it will be equally warmly embraced by a new gen... ...oh, hang on, we're actually talking Cabaret Voltaire here, not the Stooges. So anyway, if you have not had the chance to grow up with Cabaret Voltaire (and although I, a simple Soviet kid, might have had that chance if my parents were huge New Wave fans, they were not, so I hadn't), you might find it hard to get adjusted to their rough brand of electrofunk later on in life. Consequently, even if Micro-Phonies, their 6th proper LP produced in 1984 with three new percussionists replacing Alan Fish, tends to be highly rated by veteran fans, particularly those reared on the video for ʻSensoriaʼ, nothing guarantees that it will be equally warmly embraced by those of us who tend to be curious about Cabaret Voltaire rather than giddily excited. But yes, ʻSensoriaʼ is a pretty damn good «spooky dance-pop» number for 1984, maybe one of the most successful updates of Kraftwerk's Man Machine vibe for the Age of Dance. Mystery bassline, disturbing synth bubbling, and Mallinder's breathy vocals singing about sin, temptation, and "senses reaching fever pitch". Frankly, this is not a very good line: Cabaret Voltaire are a cold band par excellence, and no matter how many paranoid overdubs they make, "fever pitch" is never a thing I could associate with any of their songs. Across these six minutes, something is clearly being reached by the senses, but it ain't fever pitch. I'm still trying to figure it out. One of the tracks carries the name of ʻJames Brownʼ, as if to acknowledge the debt that these guys owe to their funky forefathers, but yet again, James Brown makes hot music, whereas this song, like everything else in the catalog, is freezing cold, so we should all agree to retitle it ʻAnti-James Brownʼ and then play it simultaneously with ʻSex Machineʼ so as to annihilate all sonic matter in the world. It does feature the catchiest bit on the album — the mantra of "everything devoured, I learn to hold my will power" repeated over and over against a cheerful brass riff — but I have no idea what it means or how it relates to The Godfather Of Soul. However, my personal favourite track on the record is ʻSpies In The Wiresʼ, maybe one of the most atmospheric things in the CV catalog — and I mean successfully atmospheric, on a true sensual level rather than on the level of intellectual analysis. Subjective opinion, yes, but somehow it all clicks together, particularly the cavernous synth overdubs and the "like spies in the wire, dark eyes in the wire" chorus. This track, I think, could actually spook away impressionable little kids, so keep that in mind. Other people have their own favorites, like the faster-paced ʻOperativeʼ or the perverted vibe of ʻBlue Heatʼ, but in the end it does not matter, because all the songs end up using the exact same vibe — now completely updated and refined for the general dance environment, without sacrificing an ounce of the band's ideology. Even the aptly titled ʻDigital Rastaʼ, which, as you can guess, is an attempt to synthesize their standard sound with elements of reggae, still ends up sounding like the soundtrack to a movie about chasing innocent bystanders in dark corridors and sucking their souls out. (But don't worry, the chase is always better than the catch for Mallinder and Co.). I have no idea if this is «better» than The Crackdown, but at the very least, Micro-Phonies is not any less inspired — which does not imply that either of the two is a work of genius, but yes, at least as late as 1984, Cabaret Voltaire continued to be on some sort of cutting edge. And the album title might suggest that they weren't taking themselves too seriously, either, which is always a good thing. THE COVENANT, THE SWORD AND THE ARM OF THE LORD (1985) 1) L21ST; 2) I Want You; 3) Hells Home; 4) Kickback; 5) The Arm Of The Lord; 6) Warm; 7) Golden Halos; 8) Motion Rotation; 9) Whip Blow; 10) The Web. And here comes another partial reinvention of the Cabaret Voltaire sound / aesthetics. First they were a theatrically spooky avantgarde outfit, then they became a theatrically spooky dance-pop band, and with The Covenant, they become a hilariously surrealistic dance-pop band. Never mind that the title of the album is taken from the name of a recently demolished white supremacist organisation (which is why in the US the record had to be renamed simply The Arm Of The Lord to pass censorpship), or that some of the songs are spiked with excerpts from Charlie Manson's speeches — there are even fewer shivery / creepy moments here than on previous CV albums, and a lot of instrumental color instead. Personally, I find it totally non-coincidental that the record was released approximately one year after Art Of Noise made a big impact with Who's Afraid Of The Art Of Noise?, because a lot of what's going on here sounds as if Trevor Horn and Anne Dudley were involved with the project (apparently, they were not, but I would totally not be surprised). Bubbly synth bass, as if belonging to kiddie show themes; blasts of synthesized brass instruments, as if coming from sensationalist B-movie soundtracks; spliced, sliced, and mashed vocal overdubs jumping out like jack-in-a-boxes at predictable or unpredictable moments; paranoid percussion — sometimes all of it within the confines of the same track. Of course, Cabaret Voltaire still retain too much darkness to sound like newly emerged clones of the Art of Noise — Mallinder's vocals, in particular, have not changed much, as he still consistently sounds like a shadow on the run, out of breath but not out of a burning desire to save his life and his sanity despite overwhelming odds. However, there's something controversial in these paranoid vocals now surrounded by bubble synths and occasional stuttery oi-oi-oi vocal overdubs that belong in a post-Monty Python world rather than in the dusty underground of the original Cabaret Voltaire. If you know what I mean. Unquestionably, they reach the end of that rope with ʻWarmʼ, a track heavily loaded with sexy female moans that you will have problems playing in public — one thing Cabaret Voltaire had never been up to this moment is aggressively erotic, and for a good reason: it is hard to concentrate on erotic thoughts when you are running for your life in dark underground corridors. If the track were at least musically interesting, it might have worked, but its interlocking synth patterns don't sound any different from the average boring synth pop melodies of the time — which, in turn, makes the aahs and oohs seem even more ridiculous. And yet, sexual themes now occupy the band more than ever before: ʻI Want Youʼ, regardless of its title, is said to be about masturbation, for instance (not that any sane person could masturbate at that tempo for an entire four minutes, but who knows? Mallinder and Kirk may have had plenty of experience). As usual, individual tracks are rather non-descript here: the «Art of Noise aesthetics» is adopted throughout, meaning that no two songs are completely different, and the album as a whole is... well, I am not sure the merger truly works. In their attempt to combine sarcastic darkness with playful absurdism, they sort of downplay the former without justifying the latter — think the same dusty dark corridors as usual, but now they're lighted with bright shiny Christmas ornaments. Why? Well, it just so happens that there's a heavy demand for bright shiny Christmas ornaments these days — it's Christmas season, you see, and you gotta give the people what they want, even if they don't have any intentions to celebrate Christmas at all. I wouldn't go as low as a thumbs down, because this is not a proper «sellout» or anything, but I really don't see much of a point in this album. And it certainly is not made any scarier just by the inclusion of some Charles Manson mumble — most people won't even know it's Manson, and those who will are not going to lose much sleep over it. CODE (1987) 1) Don't Argue; 2) Sex, Money, Freaks; 3) Thank You America; 4) Here To Go; 5) Trouble (Won't Stop); 6) White Car; 7) No One Here; 8) Life Slips By; 9) Code. This, I believe, is where it makes all kinds of sense to jump ship. If The Covenant made at least superficial efforts to preserve Cabaret Voltaire's psycho atmosphere, Code just drops it all in favor of a completely redesigned, rebranded, glossed-up sound that makes Cabaret Voltaire no different from dozens, if not hundreds, of artists in the electro-pop genre. Their reliance on «Art Of Noise aesthetics» continues unabated, but there are no signs of a newly found sense of humor, and there is nothing offered to truly delight the senses. Track after track, everything on Code sounds the same: thick synthetic bass, electronic percussion, ornamental synthesizers, and Mallinder's "peril's-always-round-the-corner" vocals that we would love to hear resolve themselves in a mighty scream at least once — suspense is fine, but not when it lasts forever; eventually, it ceases to be suspense and becomes routine. If Mallinder and Kirk were masters of the pop hook, things could be brighter; they are not, though, and neither do they qualify as masters of the electronic groove. It does not really get any better or any worse than the first track. Like the Manson-soaked tracks on Covenant, ʻDon't Argueʼ tries to brew up a feeling of danger and paranoia by sampling dialog from Your Job In Germany, Frank Capra's «training» movie for GIs who occupied Germany in 1945, with stern "you will not be friendly... you will be aloof..." warnings scattered all over the track. Problem is, the remaining parts of the track are simply too emotionally weak to be compatible with Capra's genuinely serious overdubs. What are they trying to scare us with — the bubbly bass? The thin, wimpy, string synths? The hushed multi-tracked vocal melody? Yes, it is objectively «paranoid-sounding», but for all these much-clichéd tricks, you can clearly feel that the major focus is on the danceable rhythm, not the atmosphere that goes with it. In fact, remove the film overdubs and it's like... third prize in the local «create-your-own-Prince-groove» high school competition or something. Useless, really. And with that heavy feeling, you discover the second track (ʻSex, Money, Freaksʼ) and you find out that its vibe is pretty much the same. All the ingredients are the same — and the final effect is the same: danceable, for sure, but artistically bland. Third, fourth, fifth track... all the same, all the way to the end. Honestly, I have not the faintest idea why anybody should have listened to this back in 1987, let alone now. Thumbs down, and let's be done with it, because other than a bunch of expletives, I cannot think of anything else in the constructive vein. GROOVY, LAIDBACK AND NASTY (1990) 1) Searchin'; 2) Hypnotised; 3) Minute By Minute; 4) Runaway; 5) Keep On (I Got This Feeling); 6) Magic; 7) Time Beats; 8) Easy Life; 9) Rescue Me (City Lights). I must say that I am a tiny bit fascinated with how Cabaret Voltaire's transformation took place so slowly, meticulously, and at such a smooth rate — from The Covenant, with its emotionally neutral substance set to Charles Manson spookiness, to Code, with its purely formal darkness over unassuming dance rhythms, and finally to this record, which completely discards all traces of the band's seedy past and, in fact, in select places sounds like Phil Collins. Okay, so actually some sources suggest that the album may have been influenced by the acid house genre. Me not having had much interest towards trendy electronic developments in the late Eighties (I was kind of more into Creedence Clearwater Revival at the time), I'm still not entirely sure what «acid house» is, but if it's, let's say, 808 State, then this album is definitely not even close to «acid house», because the only thing «acid» about it is how it eats away my ears with its bland, stupid-sounding rhythms. As far as I can tell now, twenty-five years after the fact, this is just run-of-the-mill dance music, without any serious hooks (which is normal for CV) and without any captivating atmospheric twists (which is not normal). The opening number, ʻSearchin'ʼ, is fairly typical of the record as a whole: house rhythms, simple repetitive piano notes, disco strings, and unexpectedly high-pitched, sentimental vocals from Mr. Mallinder — it's nice to finally see him introduce some diversity into his singing, but not at such a terrible cost, because this here is not true Cabaret Voltaire, nor is it any other sort of decent music. Track after track, you get bales of club fodder whose only purpose (get you dancing to those hot new rhythms) outlived itself a long time ago. A little bit of rapping (ʻRunawayʼ) does neither harm nor good, but for the most part the tracks are remarkably monotonous. I am pretty sure that only a major, major fan of generic late Eighties' dance muzak could still hold some love in his/her heart for this stuff. It is not even clear to me if this was an intentional sellout or more of an «experiment» — possibly the latter, considering that already the next album would bring back a little of that true CV essence. Regardless of whether they did this for money purposes or out of a crazy artistic whim, Groovy, Laidback & Nasty is very clearly the nadir of the band's career. Even the album title is like a self-parody. It's a good thing nobody was interested, though, or we might have ended up with a whole series of such turds. Thumbs down. BODY AND SOUL (1991) 1) No Resistance; 2) Shout; 3) Happy; 4) Decay; 5) Bad Chemistry; 6) Vibration; 7) What Is Real; 8) Western Land; 9) Don't Walk Away; 10) Alien Nation Funk; 11) What Is Real. A correction of sorts: this next installation of The Continuing Saga of Mallinder And Kirk's Journeys In Confusing Electronic Worlds of the Next Generation brings back the spookiness of classic Cabaret Voltaire, if not the rest of the atmosphere. This does not mean that we have to like the album or even waste more than a tiny modicum of time on it, but at least you will not emerge from the listening experience feeling deceived, stunned, and stupid. This album, unlike its predecessor, probably could be qualified as true «acid» house, since many of the tracks have true psychedelic vibes, mostly generated through creaky, squelchy synth tones and their interaction with the overloud bass lines. Whether it should be qualified as respectable or awesome acid house is a different matter — to me, it still sounds like they are essentially trying to emulate their new teachers, with consistently mediocre results. Any 808 State release from that period, such as Ex:El from that same year, kicks Mallinder and Kirk's ass all over the place in terms of energy and excitement, because these guys have learned the basic trade, but they can only establish the groove: they lack the imagination required to properly ride it. Of course, this is how they always did it: even in their best period, any five-or-more-minute composition of theirs would sound the same throughout. But now that they no longer sound like a bunch of living ghosts wandering through bombed sewers, and now that the gray, depressing, but at least somewhat exploratory guitar drones have been completely replaced by repetitive synth loops, the atmospheres become thinner, feebler, and far more prone to boring you to death on the very first minute (although at least they are not embarrassing you the way they did on Laidback, Groovy & Nasty). Occasionally they pin the track to a very sharply defined, catchy keyboard riff and some repetitive vocal mantra (ʻDon't Walk Awayʼ), slapping «commercial potential» on the song, but then I am not quite sure of the emotional content of the hook. It's still far more «body» than «soul», you understand. I am a little partial towards the first track, ʻNo Resistanceʼ, which seems to betray more work and inspiration than almost anything else here — a nice combo of overdubs, with paranoid bubbly synth bass, Latinized percussion, «magic room keyboards», Mallinder's disturbed whispers, and occasional avantgarde piano breaks almost succeeding in restoring the classic old paranoia by entirely new means. However, everything that follows feels either inferior in execution or following some entirely different (and boring) purpose other than letting you know how confused and scared of the ways of the world these guys are (which is, after all, their only legitimate reason for musical existence). Nice bass on ʻShoutʼ, ʻHappyʼ, and other tracks, but no instrumental hooks, and the endlessly repeated vocal mantras get annoying real quickly. Every once in a while, they interrupt the never-ending paranoid-dance party with either a message of atmospheric astral noise (ʻDecayʼ) or a piece of blissful ambience (ʻWestern Landʼ, which sounds as if Eno were hiding around the corner), but those interludes are really only there to give you a break from toe-tappin', foot-stompin' obligations; the last time Cabaret Voltaire were systematically engaged in the production of noise was even before the release of their first LP, and the last time they were systematically interested in beautiful-sounding ambience was... never, so the probability of their making a mark on the genres here is about the same as if Paul McCartney, way past his prime, suddenly decided to tread on the turf of death metal (which would at least be far more novel). As it is, by the time we get to ʻWhat Is Realʼ, terminating the experience with seven minutes of a continuously looped six-note keyboard riff eating your brains out, all you have learned is that switching to «proper» acid house did not automatically transform Mallinder and Kirk into songwriting geniuses. However, for objectivity's sake I do have to add that I am no expert on house music, much less acid house music, and occasionally find even alleged masterpieces dull and pointless, so be independent, try ʻNo Resistanceʼ for starters and feel free to allow yourself to get all wowed and awed by the rest — perhaps I just «don't get it», classic style. PLASTICITY (1992) 1) Low Cool; 2) Soul Vine (70 Billion People); 3) Resonator; 4) Inside The Electronic Revolution; 5) From Another Source; 6) Deep Time; 7) Back To Brazilia; 8) Neutron Factory; 9) Delmas 19; 10) Cooled Out; 11) Invisible Generation; 12) Soulenoid. One thing I got to say in favor of those late-period albums by Mallinder and Kirk: at least they brought the darkness back. By the late Eighties, they had almost turned into a pretty shallow, pure-dance-oriented techno band, with just enough electronic quirks and smirks to be (sometimes way too undeservedly) classified as «acid house», but still taking the I out of IDM at every opportunity. With Plasticity, they managed to at least partially revert the process, and return to making music injected with the proper paranoia virus — joining the club of dark-minded electronic wizards with a penchant for using the extremes of technology to warn us humans about the extremes of technology. There is no talk here of being on the cutting edge, but as far as early Nineties' electronic music goes, this record does not seem particularly out-of-touch or ridiculous to me. Not that I'm all that interested in discussing it. One ambient techno track after another, sometimes harsher, sometimes softer, usually with a few vocal overdubs — however, for the first time ever Mallinder does not sing at all, letting the music and the vocal samples do all the talking, which is at once good (because we're all kind of tired of his paranoid whispery declamations already) and bad (because it was an integral part of their identity), so that's one less detail to discuss. A typical track is ʻSoulenoidʼ, which completes the record: steady rhythm, pulsating acid bass, one atmospheric synth part forming a grey sonic cloud in the background, a six-note alarm-triggering synth riff responsible for all «movement», and some dialog sampled from some sci-fi movie or other to raise the level of tension. Seems cool, right? But the formula is reused way too often, and almost each of the tracks is like six or seven minutes long. That said, I'm fairly sure you could play about half of these tracks back-to-back with Aphex Twin, and most people wouldn't know the difference — that's the big problem with electronic music in general, because these textures make it pretty hard to package a part of your spirit with them. As I said, the «return to the dark side» is most welcome, but the fact is, a huge lot of electronic artists create «dark» music (many more, in fact, than those that create «light» music), and there's no wonder in the fact that Plasticity simply sank to the bottom in an instant, without making anybody raise an eyebrow. The very fact of me not getting too irritated by the record (except for its horrendous length) should probably be a compliment, though — it is neither original nor memorable, but neither is it stupid. They are definitely still looking for something, and working their twin asses off, and so let us show at least a bit of critical respect by not saying "they should have retired and left us in peace by now". INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE (1993) 1) Everything Is True; 2) Radical Chic; 3) Taxi Mutant; 4) Let It Come Down; 5) Afterglow; 6) The Root; 7) Millenium; 8) Belly Of The Beast; 9) Other World. More sophisticated techno from the now-obscure couple who just refuse to quit. There are some significant differences from last time around: apparently, «international language» means saying goodbye to some of the more «acid» excesses and concentrating upon grooves, loops, and samples of a smoother, softer variety, with high-pitched, chime-like frequencies largely replacing the squeaky-squelchy burps of Plasticity. In layman terms, this means that International Language is not so much going to kick your ass as it's going to pat you on it, although the whole thing is still much too dark and grumpy to bring in the «sexiness» of Groovy, Laidback And Nasty (and thank God for that!). On the grand scale of things, this changes nothing: as background muzak for huge electronica fans, there's no problem with the album, but miracles are not going to happen, and chances of any of these tunes to linger on in your head once they have performed their applied function seem rather ephemere. I like the attention to detail — for instance, the mechanism of slowly «breeding» the techno groove of ʻEverything Is Trueʼ as it grows out of some musique concrète, generating all of its overdubbed samples before the rhythmic base is properly established; however, once it is properly established, it just becomes a generic techno dance number. I also suppose that ʻRadical Chicʼ might be an actual tribute to Chic — I'm not sure if they sample any Chic material here, but the track sure sounds the way a proper techno cover of Chic should sound — and that is probably creative, but techno reinventions of disco oldies are not really my thing (I usually have to come up with excuses for why I like this or that particular disco song, and I'd have to come up with twice the number of said excuses for a disco-techno hybrid). ʻLet It Come Downʼ is a little reminiscent of the old days, with a very thick, very grumpy-sounding bassline, rhythmic industrial clanging in the background and a pseudo-brass riff from a spy movie rotating in the background — if not for the relentless techno punch and the lack of depressive guitar drones, you'd almost mistake it for a leftover from the old days, and I'd love to see it torn out of this context and placed on a more impressive album as a moody instrumental interlude. However, apart from it and maybe the cute combination of the surreptitious-subtle funky bassline and «hooting owl» gimmick of ʻBelly Of The Beastʼ, nothing else truly stands out. So when we get to the finale of ʻOther Worldʼ, and the rhythmic base falls out, leaving us with nothing but pure New Agey ambience of electronic swirls and distant echoes, the effect is a bit baffling — you mean to say that this was an artistic statement all along, not merely a collection of well-wrought grooves to help the blood flow?.. I suppose there should be an inevitable crack at the title here — something along the lines of «if this kind of techno is indeed supposed to represent ʻinternational languageʼ by default, I sure wish Mallinder and Kirk stuck to all things national» — but the album, like most of their late period efforts, is really not too bad, and it manages to preserve a tiny pinch of their unique identity. I'm pretty sure it could even appeal to major fans of electronic music, like a Susan Tedeschi album might appeal to major blues fans. I just can't get rid of the feeling that ever since CV switched over to electronics completely, they found themselves locked in this compromised state, where everything they'd do would work to some degree, but never to the degree of leaving a lasting imprint on the music genre. But who knows? Maybe in twenty years' time you'll see International Language reappraised as a lost masterpiece, and people will be ready to donate all of their Aphex Twin collection for a used copy. The Grand DJ works in mysterious ways. 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