Cabaret Voltaire - 2X45

Released in 1982, Cabaret Voltaire’s 2x45 is a pivotal, experimental post-punk/industrial album bridging their early sound with later funkier work. As the final recording featuring Chris Watson, it blends sinister, tape-manipulated electronics with danceable, tribal rhythms, often cited as an accessible yet intense, "easier-to-digest" Red Mecca. Originally released as a double 12-inch, it acts as two distinct 45 RPM records (hence the title), often described as a collection of high-energy, dark industrial tracks. "Yashar" is widely regarded as a standout, featuring iconic, haunting vocal samples. "Breathe Deep" and "War of Nerves (T.E.S.)" are also highlighted for their intense, rhythmic experimentation. Critics consider 2x45 a strong, transitional, and essential part of the Sheffield band's discography, offering a blend of artistic experimentation and rhythmic intensity. 

I think this is the Cabs’ most exciting album, functioning as a perfect midpoint in their transition between their earlier industrial punk experimentation and later synth dance (or, as they put it in the title of their compilation, electropunk to technopop). The first three tracks build on, or dare I say refine, the sound from Mix-Up to Red Mecca while the next three introduce a more aggressive version of the funky The Crackdown and on. Although I think “Seconds Too Late” is the best track of the Cabs’ early sound and “Spies in the Wire” or “Sensoria” from Microphonies are the highlights of the latter years, 2x45 is where you can really hear it all come together.

Cabaret Voltaire - The Covenant, The Sword And The Arm Of The Lord

Named after a radical right-wing American organization -- and possibly for that reason simply retitled The Arm of the Lord in the States -- Covenant, self-produced by the group at its long-time studio Western Works, is something of a curious release. While not much like Code and the group's absolute nadir, Groovy, Laidback and Nasty, Covenant still subtly indicates the band's incipient spiral into fairly unremarkable late-eighties mediocrity. Call it a use of already-clichéd musical touches copied from others where before Mallinder and Kirk invented sounds everyone else ripped off, but whatever the reason the Cabs here start being less special and more run-of-the-mill. The balance perfected between sheen and punch on The Crackdown and Micro-Phonies is still here, but the stripped-down power of that latter album in particular gets disguised here by intrusive synth-pop and hip-hop elements. Sometimes such new fusions work -- "I Want You," with an amusing vocal hook provided from a favourite Cabs vocal source, a TV/radio preacher, has just enough breathy energy and attractiveness to stand out strongly. Many other tracks betray the titular fascination with America, God and guns the Cabs exorcise here, such as the introductory samples to "Hells Home" and "The Arm of the Lord" itself. Other tracks have definite moments in general, like the quirky combination of percussion on the instrumental break of "Golden Halos." Mallinder gets in some sharp, rumbling bass work at points, and his understated but clear vocal approach still serves him well, while Kirk packs in quite a few fine electronic touches throughout. Still, though, there's just something about this album which feels a bit half-cocked -- fans as always will find something to enjoy.

Cabaret Voltaire - Micro-Phonies

Following neatly after The Crackdown's aggressive art/funk/electro combination, Micro-Phonies shows the duo taking that combination to a stronger level. Having invented the shadowy, murkier side of industrial/noise experimentation, here Cabaret Voltaire make their equally justified claim at fully kickstarting the beat-heavy crunch such labels as Wax Trax! would pursue shortly thereafter. DAF and the On-U Sound collective deserve as much notice for this, but the Cabs' relatively higher profile in the English/American cultural scheme made them the harbingers as much as anyone. Flood's sympathetic co-production with the band is another feather in his cap, and the album sounds just as strong today as it did upon its release. Micro-Phonies' most noted tracks are the appropriately funky, horn-heavy "James Brown," and the gripping "Sensoria," which makes for a brilliant album closer, with nervous-tension synth signals and a spare but compelling guitar line over another strong beat combination. Subtler moments abound as well -- there's a nice combination of the Cabs' initially understated approach and the greater opportunities available to them in the album's recording. "The Operative" is an unheralded highlight of the release, Mallinder's low-key speak/singing sidling alongside the crisp but not overpowering rhythm, controlled funk bass and guitar and touches of dub melodica sneaking through the mix. Other hints of the dub influences that the band has always embraced crop up on songs like (unsurprisingly) "Digital Rasta." Throughout the album, Mallinder submerges his vocals into the music rather than calling overt attention to them, the reverse of what a lot of later industrial acts would do (often to their detriment). It's a sharp continuation of the Cabs' similar practice from many earlier numbers, here used in a newer musical style. 

Cabaret Voltaire - The Crackdown

Apart from a single, overlooked Virgin reissue around 2000 and scattered compilations, most of the music here hasn't been available almost since it was initially released, and certainly The Crackdown alone will serve to change some opinions of the Cabs' tenure in the majors. Indeed, if the record takes a step back from the sprawling experimental tracks of 2x45 or Three Mantras, it does so by harking back to the shorter song lengths of their earlier albums. The dub influence is back to the fore, as are weird, tinny reggae horns, both of the synthesised and acoustic variety. The production is noticeably cleaner than their underfinanced independent recordings, but it's hardly less dark, and the added clarity serves to show off the diverse, layered productions, which draw equally from dub, funk, and early electro. Mallinder's vocals are easier to cipher than they had been before, but the pop tones they would later take on are evident on a few tracks from the album: the title track, 'Taking Time', 'Animation' and the cynically comical 'Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself)'. Much of the rest would not sound out of place on Red Mecca, but benefits from more transparent production, while the lyrical themes remain as fragmented and inscrutably bleak as ever. The album's second half mostly finds them sounding very recognisably like their earlier selves, especially the closing trio of sinister nearly-ambient works and prominent swaths of horns by Kirk.

Stephen Mallinder - Temperature Drop 12''

A little after thought, as it happens, I also have a lovely FLAC rip of Stephen’s debut 12” single. Go On, spoil yourselves.

Stephen Mallinder - Pow Wow Plus

Former Cabaret Voltaire bassist and mouthpiece Mallinder wanted his day in the solo sun as much as partner Richard Kirk. He got just that with Pow Pow Plus, his one (and thus far only) independent release. Do you think Mallinder's contributions to Cabaret Voltaire were largely on the lyrical side? Wrong. If anything, his individual exploits are just as rough-edged, rough-hewn, and rough-housed as Kirk's.
Released in the early '80s, Pow Wow Plus comprises both the Pow Wow album and an EP and is not quite as esoteric as Kirk's electronic mantras of the same period. It is, rather, a much more organic-based and fluid recording, largely eschewing the harsh and dissonant soundscapes of Cabaret Voltaire for a more user-friendly approach. Though still possessive of salty flavours and an aroma of synth-grunge, Mallinder manages to integrate shimmering curtains of ambient electronics and the metronomic pulse of straightforward drumbeats among his whispery vocals and fat basslines. More song-oriented in feel (if you can call these tracks "songs") but still resplendent in its experimental zeal, Mallinder's work sans Cabaret Voltaire pulls a number of surprising rabbits out of the proverbial sonic hat.

Nag, Nag, Nag

Everything is so processed, so tightly wound, it often sounds like someone struggling to get out of restraints. At times it manages to be both big and small—”Nag Nag Nag”, as close as Cabaret Voltaire get to a signature song, is dominated by a vast organ grind, matched to beats so flat they resemble the last exhale of a drum machine about to shuffle off and die.

Three Mantras

Happy New Year everyone! Although what you're doing here at this time of day is anyone's guess. As requested a little bit more of the Cabs, this time from Rough Trade 1980 and the mini album / 12" single Three Mantras.

It would actually be more accurate to call this album 'Two Mantras,' given that it consists of two sidelong pieces, "Eastern Mantra" and "Western Mantra," which gives the still-then-a-trio a chance to expand its avant-electronic-grunge into trancier realms. Mallinder's abstract ranting is in full effect from the start of "Eastern," talking about bodies in the streets and the like, and from there things move into a rough realm of strange art, Voltaire-style. The combination of Kirk's guitar and Mallinder's bass work here is practically that of Krautrock/motorik, Mallinder playing a steady, quietly varying series of notes while Kirk throws in a variety of crumbling squalls. His work is sometimes vaguely Arabic in flavour, which combined with the length of the song, the hollow drum machine driving everything along, and Watson's piercing keyboards is not merely interesting but helps to demonstrate, in a subtle way, some of the future influences on artists like Muslimgauze. The alien feeling at the core of Cabaret Voltaire remains, though, strong and strange as always. "Western Mantra" has the basic trio, plus guests on percussion and found-sound tapes, doing something far more outré. A heavily-treated vocal loop under laid by a subtle keyboard drone starts the song, interspersed with samples of Arabic and Israeli pop music and various bell sounds -- the roots for Muslimgauze in particular really show here! Kirk's crisp playing floats in some time later, stepping in and out of the mix but never predominating, while Mallinder's bass is barely detectable. The occasional bursts of low, clattering pounding, with cymbals if not with drums in the background, combined with the continuing series of song samples, Arabic wind instruments and snippets recorded in a Jerusalem market, heightens the enveloping, striking feel of the piece and release as a whole.

Yashar

In 1983, Cabaret Voltaire were already celebrating their 10th year in existence.  After the departure of Chris Watson 2 years prior in 1981, Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk were reduced to a duo that were becoming less industrial, and slowly getting their feet wet with dance music while remaining on the cutting edge of sound.

This curious transitional record came out in 1983, and it marked the first time that Cabaret Voltaire was seriously intended for the dance floor. In May of 1982, the last album release of the band for Rough Trade was the aptly named “2×45” double 12″/album. On it, the closest thing the band had at that point to a big beat colossus was the second track, “Yashar.” Funk was always a motivator for the Sheffield trio but you would not know it by the sound of 12″ singles such as the preceding year’s “Eddie’s Out.”

In May of 1983, Factory Records released the only “single” from “2×45,” in John Robie’s remixes of “Yashar.” Robie wisely started the mix off with the sinister “There’s 70 billion people of earth – where are they hiding” sample from The Outer Limits then quickly took the mix into novelty disco territory as the top heavy mix threatens to wobble completely off the rails.

While the single mixes were done within a year of the song’s release, they sound like a typical post-modern mix, perhaps made years after the original. The overall effect is not unlike the shock of hearing “Blue Monday ’88” for the first time. 

A Touch Of Evil - Red Mecca

It isn't without reason that Red Mecca is often referred to as one of Cabaret Voltaire's most cohesive and brilliant records. There are tangible bumpers (the record is buttressed by squealing/wheezing interpretations of Henry Mancini's music for Orson Welles' Touch of Evil), so by that aspect there's a tangible centre. And taken as a whole, the record contains all the characteristics that have made the Sheffield group such an influential entity when it comes to electronic music of the untethered, experimental variety that isn't afraid to shake its tail a little. Unlike a fair portion of CV's studio output, Red Mecca features no failed experiments or anything that could be merely cast off as "interesting." It's a taught, dense, horrific slab lacking a lull. Dashes of Richard H. Kirk's synthesizer are welded to Chris Watson's tape effects for singed lashes of white noise, best heard on the lurching "Sly Doubt" and the jolting "Spread the Virus." Throughout, Mallinder's sinister jibber jabbering punctuates the high-pitched menace. What he's ranting about is rarely obvious, as the clarity of his voice is often obstructed by the tape effects, synth work, and other random whip-cracks (Watson's periodic surges of organ are another treat). Judging from his irritated tone, odds are the lyrics have little to do with bunnies jumping over dandelions or anything nearing pleasant -- it's that lack of definition that makes things all the more unsettling. Several tunes have a thick rhythmic drive. The instrumental "Landslide" is painfully short at two minutes, with a bopping machine beat and barely perceptible vocal samples that dart between the left and right channels. A grainy programmed rhythm and Kirk's sickly guitar manglings dominate the sleazy "Split Second Feeling." Sick, searing, engrossing. Along with 2X45 and The Living Legends, this is their best offering.