3 posts tagged “electronic”

They've been coming back for quite some time now (since 1990), of course, but now my 1980s are coming back.  Since my recent post on Slab!, band member Stephen Dray has announced their imminent reformation (in the comments on this blog post), or resumption rather, since he maintains they never officially broke up.  Woo-hoo!  And now Portion Control have announced a new album, Slug, to be released May 31.  Portion Control's early recordings, originally released on cassettes, were obviously inspired by Throbbing Gristle.  But by their first proper album, I Staggered Mentally (1982), they had settled on a more beat-oriented sound, or as they billed it, "Hard, Rhythmic Electronics."  Their 80s career peaked in 1985 with their most successful single, the industrial dancefloor staple "The Great Divide"--

There's some nice percussion in there; I'm finally learning to play a bit in a local drum circle.  It hurts after a while, but it's great to actually make the sounds I've enjoyed listening to for so long.

Portion Control ceased operations after their 1986 album, Psycho-Bod Saves the World, but returned with a new album, Wellcome, in 2002, and Filthy White Guy in 2004.  So their reactivation isn't exactly news, but Slug is, which is a good enough reason to dig out my old Portion Control records for another listen.

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.