Masters At Work

 

Cabaret Voltaire - The Crackdown [CV 1/DV 1 UK 1983 24-Bit FLAC]

Now seems a good time to visit the finest hour of Cabaret Voltaire with a new rip - naming a particular album as an artist's best is purely subjective, so I will comfortably suggest that the albums which followed were just not as important. 

The Crackdown represented a shift in direction as The Cabs left Rough Trade for a licensed deal with Some Bizzare, bringing in Dave Ball (from Soft Cell) and Alan Fish (from Hula) as extra musicians. Pounding sequenced electronica replaced multi-textured distortion and experimentation, Mal's voice needed less treatment, as did his bass guitar. This was a stripped back almost danceable soundtrack to post-industrialism, where Cabaret Voltaire left all their peers in their wake. Ask me to name a favourite track and it would likely be Animation where the Cabs find a groove, but the title track and the morphed-disco of Just Fascination will find favour with many as well. My copy came with the limited 12" EP labelled as four tracks from the Doublevision video. 

All neatly packaged up into an hour and four minutes of electronic mastery. 

You can take this from me and then get out of here!

A1  24-24 

A2  In The Shadows 

A3  Talking Time 

A4  Animation 

B1  Over And Over 

B2  Just Fascination 

B3  Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself) 

B4  Haiti 

B5  Crackdown 

C1  Diskono

C2  Doublevision

D1  Moscow

D2  Badge Of Evil