ALBUM REVIEWS - Cabaret Voltaire - The Crackdown, Micro-phonies, The Covenant, The Sword and the Arm of the Lord
As part of the ongoing revisit to the Sheffield innovator's catalogue, Mute has arrived at Cabaret Voltaire's mid-'80s Virgin Records output, itself celebrating 40 years existence this year. All are out now, along with a monumentally expensive box-set and a wealth of rare recordings and compilations.
The Crackdown
★★★★1/2
The band's debut for Some Bizarre saw their sound become more polished, yet still utterly cool and uncommercial in equal measures. With Mallinder and Kirk's interest in visuals increasing at this stage, each track on 'The Crackdown' tells a story without words, a soundtrack to a film that only exists in its creator's (and your) imaginative minds. '24-24' and 'In The Shadows' are contrasting openers - the former a stealthy electro-romp, the latter a more organic tribal funk workout that recalls their 'Yashar' period and a still-aloof air ever-present. Even the double a-side single, 'Just Fascination' and the title track, offers little in the way of warmth, moreover a sense of dread and alienation permeates these other-worldly synthesized syncopations. Needless to say, pretty much all of 'The Crackdown' has aged fairly well, despite the clunky handclaps and aggressive percussion. For me, 'Animation' was a clear-cut certainty for being a single but it wasn't to be - the band had already moved on to their next album. Four bonus cuts from the original extra EP ('Diskono' etc) accompany the album which at least improves the value for money with this reissue, unlike the other two on offer. 'Theme From Doublevision' demonstrates why Aphex Twin and Burial aren't as unique with their desolate electronica as you may think.
Micro-phonies
★★★1/2
The follow-up to 'The Crackdown' appeared just 15 months after its predecessor and bears little progression, save for the excellent accompanying single 'Sensoria'. Sadly though, Mute have opted to represent this album in its original (albeit remastered) form without extras, thus omitting the 12" version of it and the following single 'James Brown' and attendant (superior) b-side 'Bad Self'. Still, you get two versions of 'Sensoria', the best of which is subtitled 'Do Right' and opens the album. Where their previous album displayed strident rhythms, some of 'Micro-phonies' sounds decidedly poppy in comparison. 'The Operative' and 'Blue Heat' are nearly upbeat, motorik and, whisper it, commercial without the duo ever resorting to dropping their creative trousers in public. However 'Spies In The Wires' suffers from a lack of oomph and the second version of 'Sensoria' mis-fires too much to be a classic. 'Digital Rasta' and 'Slammer' on the other hand are as typically Cabs as you could wish to have. Not quite the explosive album promised by the disturbing sleeve - better followed with 'Drinking Gasoline' but that's been kept away from the track-listing.
The Covenant, The Sword and the Arm Of The Lord
★★★★★
Extra-less but a nonetheless essential album that every self-respecting industrial electro-head should own. Very much a product of the mid-'80s, TCTSATAOTL features the usual breathy vocals, the orchestral-stabs, the fret-twangs, the cut-and-paste segments and the uncompromising ear-splitting blasts that fuelled earlier albums such as 'Mix Up' and 'Red Mecca' but now with added punishing drum-machines. I really rate this album - it isn't an easy listen, it's possibly even CV's most unlistenable and unfriendly collection but it's so far ahead of its time, it hurts.
I remember buying the 12" of 'I Want You' (frustratingly not included here) and caning the thing until it could play no more. Its b-sides 'Drink Your Poison (mid-tempo, palatable fidget-funk) and 'C.O.M.A.' (a mind-mangling cut-up megamix of Covenant tracks) ensured that Cabaret Voltaire were clearly not aiming for anyone else's ears but their own. Still, there's even more fun to be had on the album - 'Hell's Home' is straight from the '2x45' handbook, 'Kickback' is the most agreeable romp perhaps while 'The Arm Of The Lord' continues the pair's dalliance with spoken-word extracts and unsettling musique-concrete, a la 400 Blows and the like.
The album's brief aural respite is kick-boxed back into the frame with the orgasm-themed 'Warm' and the weaker 'Golden Halos', but with the final three tracks you get some of the band's finest moments, all displaying just how pioneering they were with production and edits way beyond the pale. Dark.
Other recommendations worth grabbing from Cabaret Voltaire's catalogue include pretty much all of their Rough Trade output, especially 'Red Mecca', the EP 'Drinking Gasoline', their EMI album 'Code', the compilation 'Conform To Deform' and the hard-to-find releases on Les Disques du Crepuscule, Apollo Records and Plasticity.
The Crackdown
★★★★1/2
Micro-phonies
★★★1/2
The Covenant, The Sword and the Arm Of The Lord
★★★★★
I remember buying the 12" of 'I Want You' (frustratingly not included here) and caning the thing until it could play no more. Its b-sides 'Drink Your Poison (mid-tempo, palatable fidget-funk) and 'C.O.M.A.' (a mind-mangling cut-up megamix of Covenant tracks) ensured that Cabaret Voltaire were clearly not aiming for anyone else's ears but their own. Still, there's even more fun to be had on the album - 'Hell's Home' is straight from the '2x45' handbook, 'Kickback' is the most agreeable romp perhaps while 'The Arm Of The Lord' continues the pair's dalliance with spoken-word extracts and unsettling musique-concrete, a la 400 Blows and the like.
The album's brief aural respite is kick-boxed back into the frame with the orgasm-themed 'Warm' and the weaker 'Golden Halos', but with the final three tracks you get some of the band's finest moments, all displaying just how pioneering they were with production and edits way beyond the pale. Dark.
Other recommendations worth grabbing from Cabaret Voltaire's catalogue include pretty much all of their Rough Trade output, especially 'Red Mecca', the EP 'Drinking Gasoline', their EMI album 'Code', the compilation 'Conform To Deform' and the hard-to-find releases on Les Disques du Crepuscule, Apollo Records and Plasticity.