3 posts tagged “cabaret voltaire”

With all the buzz about an Obama/Clinton (or Clinton/Obama) "dream ticket," the time is ripe for posting Cabaret Voltaire's "The Dream Ticket."  Recorded in 1983, it is arguably their earliest mastery of American-style electro, overlaid with their unique Sheffield sound.  It was released as a single on Virgin, but somehow never ended up on any of their Virgin albums (not counting CD reissues).

Apparently there is a Red Bull Music Academy, not a bricks-and-mortar institution but a nomadic series of seminars and workshops with prominent (?) musicians and DJs, with a distinct electonic bent.  The great thing is, many of the talks and interviews are available on Academy's website, including one with Cabaret Voltaire founding member Stephen Mallinder: Quicktime video and text transcript here, audio podcast here (scroll down).  There's another one of Adrian Sherwood!  And the late, great Bob Moog!

Now, about that other "dream ticket," here's how the dream would go: Hillary Clinton on the Democratic presidential ticket, and the Democrats win the election, and then... nothing changes at all!  Like the 2006 midterm elections all over again.  No thanks.

Here I've been going on about Sheffield and the great industrial dance music of the 80s and I haven't even gotten around to Cabaret Voltaire yet, arguably the godfathers of that whole scene.  So to remedy that, here's the video for what is probably their best-known song, "Sensoria"--

This video was a pre-show staple at the 9:30 Club, and it got a lot of play on the college radio station, too, even though there was no station copy: everybody had their own.  I recently read Industrial Evolution: Through the Eighties with Cabaret Voltaire by Mick Fish for a more-or-less firsthand account of CV's ascendancy.  (More-or-less because Fish lived in London and only visited Sheffield on the weekends, where his childhood friend Paul Widger was his connection to the music scene.)  It's a real DIY success story, because as Fish tells it, neither of the core duo of Richard Kirk and Stephen "Mal" Mallinder knew how to play any instruments when they started, and the vocal duties fell to Mal, who also didn't know how to sing.  He developed an odd octave-jumping rap style for their first major-label album (The Crackdown, 1983) which, while effective for one or two songs, became rather grating after a whole album.  He used the same style for "Sensoria" from the follow-up album, Microphonies (1984), but thankfully came up with some variations for the rest of the songs.  CV had left their own Sheffield studio, Western Works, to record The Crackdown in London; Fish maintains this was a good move, giving the duo an outside perspective on their music and spurring some artistic growth.  Of their return to Western Works to record Microphonies, he writes:

Microphonies had the feel of a band having second thoughts about commerciality.  By recording under their own stem again at Western Works, it meant a return to the rougher more home-made approach of their earlier material.  Obviously in Paul's opinion this was not altogether a bad thing.  He tended to prefer the idea of the Cabs as a kind of electronic garage band rather than a dance act.  But many others viewed it as a step backwards.  It seemed that after a flirtation with the big time, they were still hovering on an island of indecision between the indie and mainstream seas.

Alas, they hovered until it was too late, and mainstream success slipped away from them even as they finally secured major-label support in the US.  That said, I think Microphonies is superior to the rather monotonous The Crackdown, and they kept up a high level of danceability and creativity for a few good years.  Their huge catalog of both experimental and dance-oriented electronic music is an impressive legacy.  Since their breakup, Mallinder resurfaces with new music very rarely, but Kirk has produced tons of music under a small army of pseudonyms and through myriad collaborations.  Come to think of it, I've got a lot of catching up to do on that.

"Sensoria" has been blessed with a reference in a Jonathan Carroll novel, A Child Across the Sky (IIRC): it is the opening theme music for an arts radio show hosted by one of the characters.  I think.  That reference alone should keep it bubbling around for decades to come.

Eric Random (Ramsden) had quite an interesting musical trajectory in the 80s.  He was from Manchester, but after hooking up with Cabaret Voltaire he became more closely aligned with the Sheffield scene.  His first recordings for New Hormones consisted of simple drum machine patterns, basic synth noises, and manipulated tapes, but he began incorporating, on one hand, Middle Eastern and dub styles, and on the other hand, more insistent rhythms, especially after adding drummer Graham "Dids" Dowdall.  This musical journey culminated in 1987 in what I think of as "The Great Lost Worldbeat Album," Ishmael, on FON Records; "lost" because it has never been issued on CD, an oversight I find astounding.  Random weaves Middle Eastern modalities with rock structures and rhythms, acoustic instruments with electronics, danceability with meditation.  In short, it's a masterpiece.  Here is the first track, "Cherish":

I love that bongo/flute jam in the middle!  The album cover doesn't translate well to digital format, it is actually very striking.  "Ishmael" is printed in white-on-white Arabic-style letters using a mask technique, i.e. the cover is glossy except for the letters.  The only thing wrong with this album is its length: only six tracks (one a cover of Collin Walcott's "Hey Da Da Boom") for roughly half an hour of music.  If only there had been more... Eric Random has remained active, sort of, so I suppose I should track down some of his newer material.

I could participate in the Sheffield scene only vicariously, from across the Atlantic, through reading the weekly UK music papers.  I remember reading Amrik Rai's highly enthusiastic review of Hula.  He was so enthusiastic that he founded the FON Records label in collaboration with Mark Brydon of Chakk (coming to the blog soon, maybe).  Hula was already signed to Red Rhino, but FON picked up some closely associated bands (Chakk for one, obviously).  Now that was a label whose every release was a must-buy for me; up until The Funky Worm, that is.  FON records were easy to spot by their distinctive black-and-white-striped spine, which just lapped onto the front cover.  Now that I think of it, and have done a quick Google search, very little of the FON catalog has made it to CD, except what I have ripped from vinyl for myself.  And you!