Cabaret Voltaire

You haven't spun the Conform box you ordered over a year ago? Get to it, man!

You're also missing the "Listen Up" odds and sods comp of the Virgin years. Definitely the least of the material but the high points are excellent.

playing live again http://incubate.org/2015/line-up/368/cabaret-voltaire

Still no news on the early material getting a similar treatment to Red Mecca or at least a remaster of some kind?

can't get behind the notion that Kirk solo = CV personally.

for those that remember, Fon Records bloke, Amrik Rai is behind the release, and getting RHK back in line with the use of the CV name.
the use of cut-up vocals and synths is very much in line with mid-80s CV, but the overall production is a lot more current sounding.
naturally, i love it

r.i.p. amrik.
you genuinely changed my listening groove.
oh, and KRUSH was one of the best pop songs ever.

many years back i actually had an email exchange with amrik.
it was one of those WTF moments given how massive FON were for me.

I'm intrigued. Youtube link(s)?

intrigued re what, Amriks death or FON records ?

https://www.discogs.com/label/4664-Fon-Records

STEPHEN MALLINDER, CO-FOUNDER & FRONTMAN OF CABARET VOLTAIRE
ANNOUNCES UM DADA
HIS FIRST SOLO ALBUM IN OVER 35 YEARS
OUT OCTOBER 11 ON DAIS RECORDS

LISTEN TO 'WORKING (YOU ARE)'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jRabUCfE9M

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/a088e1e7fb68010cf6ad8ff4a/images/b6e6d1b8-8944-4e67-8a9d-269ce6015897.jpg

Stephen Mallinder, co-founder and frontman of the iconic Cabaret Voltaire, has returned with his first solo album in over 35 years: Um Dada. Laced with leftfield house and cut-up sound collages, Um Dada is a melding of energies that are an exercise in simplicity and motion. Sincere, playful realism that beckons your body to move, always reminding you to never take yourself too seriously without forfeiting your agency.

While steering Cabaret Voltaire through the 1980’s, Mallinder was already busy piecing together his first solo album entitled “Pow Wow”, which would help define Mallinder’s interest in the more leftfield electro sounds shaping England at the time. It was this diverse and abstract hybrid that helped inspire generations of artists and musicians through steeping raw machine funk within the whimsical and absurdist ideology.

Since the release of “Pow Wow” in 1982, Mallinder continued his pioneering work with Cabaret Voltaire, as well as recording and touring with his electro projects Wrangler, Creep Show, Hey Rube, Kula, and Cobby & Mallinder. In addition to his non-stop schedule in electronic music, his professional life as a journalist, broadcaster, producer and now a professor of Digital Music & Sound Art at the University of Brighton, has lead Mallinder to a unique point in his career. Most in his position would be caught up in rosy retrospection, but Mallinder himself says, “There’s too much digital finger-licking right now; every thought and desire at the turn of a dial… well a click of the mouse. And there’s a giddy, false nostalgia about the analogue past. Sorry to burst your bubble but the truth of history is more mundane: practical, pragmatic...Um Dada is about ‘play’ – cut and paste, lost words, twisted presets, voice collage, simple sounds – things that have been lost to technology’s current determinism. Let the machines talk to each other, let them dance .. they lead, we follow.”

Um Dada opens up with the exact machine-led surrealism that Mallinder recommends in “Working (You Are)”. A thick, stripped back dance floor groove provides the ideal foundation for Mallinder’s eccentric vocal cuts. The frisky chops present an almost twisted irony, subtly bringing to mind the role we’re all forced to play as just another cog in the ever grinding capitalist machine of life. Yet, somehow, the listener is left feeling optimistic. A prime example of simplicity at work.

Tracks such as “Satellite” give a skillful illustration of Mallinder’s adeptness with his musical expertise while preserving his core historical context as only simple reference. The underlying bassline and percussion, coupled with the floating melodies and airy vocal refrain disclose the vulnerabilities of love and loss without a hint of irony or nostalgia.

Um Dada is mischievously idealist, however never loses touch with reality. Offering structure while simultaneously dismantling any and all preconceptions. The spirit of sincerity that sustained Cabaret Voltaire’s lengthy career is abundantly present within founder Stephen Mallinder’s journey through his own whimsical utopian consciousness and staking claim to an identity that is solely his own.

http://gallery.mailchimp.com/a088e1e7fb68010cf6ad8ff4a/_compresseds/79a11e0e-e3f2-4b5a-9ade-bbac6cf1a27a.jpg-

Stephen Mallinder
Um Dada
Dais Records
October 11, 2019

Working (You Are)
Prefix Repeat Rewind
It’s Not Me
Um Dada
Satellite
Colour
Flashback
Robber*
Hollow*

*CD & Digital bonus tracks

"There's 70 billion people in there ..."

Love to know the origin of this sample - always puzzled me, as there aren't 70 billion people anywhere.

― soukesian, Sunday, January 22, 2006

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_with_a_Glass_Hand

i like that track a lot.

I love Stephen's work with Wrangler and Creep Show, and I think most fans of the Cab's Virgin period will, too. His solo album, "Pow Wow", was unknown to me for eons until I picked it up a couple of years ago. It fits in perfectly with the "2x45" era material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZSg4dHHibQ

noice.

I have really warmed to their 1993 album International Languagewhich to me feels like their delayed reaction to Chill Out -- it's pretty distinctive in their catalogue, with soft, plush sounds and pillowy textures on e.g. the drums -- not so different that you don't recognize them, but audibly in a different place -- kind of a more inward version of a band who'd been writing for the clubs a couple years earlier. I've spent a fair bit of time with this album over the past year and become fascinated by it -- tons of really engaging space in it, the tracks are leisurely and unhurried, sprawling almost.

I never gave that one a chance. Will relisten!

I’ll give it a re listen too. In my mind it’s a lesser version of The Conversation but the Chill Out comparison intrigues me

never seen a copy, so not got around to getting that album yet.

as much as i enjoyed last years album and the follow on ep, i have to admit the 2 recent drone releases didn't exactly do much for me.

Oof yeah. This one's a real beauty. A sublime blend of CV's love for Chicago House with their own sensibilities. Much closer to Kirk's solo dance stuff but restrained, almost mystical. Looking forward to giving "The Conversation" a renewed listen next.

“The Conversation” is another unsung ( by me! I guess I stopped my youthful Cabs love around the time I saw them open for Suicide c. 90/91) beauty. It heads back and deeper into the paranoid, gritty aspect of their sound. Again sans Mal vox but what a gorgeous and intense and sprawling album.

Really glad I gave International Language another spin. Beautiful stuff. Plasticity had been released the year before and I was never keen on the dialogue samples on the first track (which according to a comment on Discogs is from 'My Crazy Life' Jean-Pierre Godin's 1992 documentary on the lives of Samoan street gang members in Los Angeles). The Conversation is still my go to CV listen, and Virtual State the pinnacle of Kirk’s solo work

Chris Watson did an interesting talk last week.
Hadn't realised he'd gone onto doing sound for a lot of David Attenborough documentaries & apparently Chernobyl which I think was the Jared Harris series. Seems like he was doing environmental recordings from pretty early on.

Do far prefer the band with him in so i tend to give up before the stuff that was really popular.

Did quite enjoy some of the solo clonk stuff by the other 2 but has been quite a while since I dug it out. think I was mainly picking up the cds from sales in Dublin which shows how long ago that was.

thanks for this revive y'all, i've been cranking early '90s CV and related kirk solo stuff all week and this is pretty much my favorite music of all time

Huh, International Language is on US Spotify but not Plasticity, although both were on the same label in the US, so doesn't make much sense.

yeah the state of the catalogue is a mess.

Anyhoo I stopped listening after Code but International Language is quite good and I think I even like Groovy, Laidback and Nasty now.

and I think I even like Groovy, Laidback and Nasty now.

yeah, i recently revisited this album, and loved it a lot more than i ever did at the time.
and in case you don't know, the vinyl edition came with an extra 12" of CV remixes of several tracks,
all of which are included on the 'Remixed' compilation.

https://www.discogs.com/Cabaret-Voltaire-Remixed/master/134525

apropos of nothing other than i just saw it for the first time, wow "sensoria" has an amazing music video

"sensoria" video is all time. it still looks amazing but on release was truly mindblowing. i have a vague feeling it won some award. i also remember lots of "how did they do that?" conversations, which it seems still take place - https://ask.metafilter.com/235026/How-did-they-do-the-camera-move-in-this-old-Cabaret-Voiltaire-video

i revisited Groovy, Laidback and Nasty yesterday. The bonus 12" that came with it has really stood up & there are some great remixes of the singles off it, and ace b-sides too.

i saw them on that tour. the majority of the audience were still from the long mac brigade era and when Mal bounced onto stage in a shell suit, blowing a whistle there was a palpable sense of horror from most of them. by half way through a good % had left. i loved every minute.

i saw them on that tour. the majority of the audience were still from the long mac brigade era and when Mal bounced onto stage in a shell suit, blowing a whistle there was a palpable sense of horror from most of them. by half way through a good % had left. i loved every minute.

the final disc in the 'Conform To Deform' boxset is a live recording from that tour i believe.

oh, it's from that very gig - Liveform 8 June '90 Edinburgh. Archive 3

3-1 Intro / Runaway
3-2 Keep On
3-3 Sex, Money, Freaks
3-4 Sensoria
3-5 Thank You America
3-6 Positive ID
3-7 Whole World
3-8 Easy Life
3-9 Ride Baby Ride (Acid)
3-10 Searching
3-11 Hypnotised / Outro

i must overcome my CD aversion and check it out. I took some very strong acid that night so it is a little hazy but i do remember losing my mind (even more than i already had) to "Thank You America" and "Sensoria". i stayed up all night and then went straight back to Glasgow to sit an Economics exam and got the highest marks i ever got for an exam at univertsity. Perhaps if i'd taken loads more acid and gone to several more CV gigs i'd have ended up being an economist? ;-)

haha.
the mind boggles (literally in your case).
and that's excellent re it being the same gig.

An old friend and I were talking about the Sensoria video not long ago and he brought back to me that it was on the UK's Max Headroom video show, which is where I would have first become aware of CV, I'm guessing it did the same for others of a similar age. I dutifully bought Microphonies and was smitten.

Then I worked back through the more recent records until that first reissue campaign happened in the early 90s which was great because some of the older records could be pretty tough to find, and I bought Mix Up and Live YMCA (iirc) on one cassette and boy, that took a long old time to sink in.

yeah, i saw the video on Max Headroom as well, but i had already got the 12" version.
Sensoria was my first introduction to them though.
i was walking around my hometown when i randomly bumped into the record shop owner that i used to hang out in,
he asked if there was anything I wanted him to order in.
i opened that weeks NME, pointed to the Single Of the Week review of Sensoria, and asked him to get it in for me.
i had no idea what it was going to sound like, but the review made me want to hear it.
turned out to be one of the best randoms ever.

ooops - a story i told on this thread 9 years ago.
but hey, at least i am consistent.

Stirmonster...how did people respond to that Mal fronted War Galaxy cover? Only discovered that recently...if they thought house era Cabs was a pop sell out that video must've given them a fit. I should include myself in "them" of course because even as young as I was in 1990 or so, I was still firmly in the "industrial cool, techno is for fools" camp.

it made almost zero impact here despite getting a really big marketing push. there were big posters around city centres and lots of music press adverts. i bought mine in a chart return shop for 99p (usual price for a 12" then was probably £3-4) as the EMI sales reps were trying to hype it into the charts by offloading lots of very cheap copies. i was in the "industrial cool, acid house rules" camp so was out at loads of house clubs at that time and am pretty sure i never, ever heard it played. i can't remember there being much talk about it at all. i like it more now than i did then.

umm what is this you are talking about ?

Sensoria was my first introduction too, via that video, though i had danced to Nag Nag Nag & Just Fascination loads of times not knowing who they were by. 'Microphonies' was my first CV LP.

talking about this, mark

https://www.discogs.com/Love-Street-Galaxy/master/160070

oh, and I had danced to Yashar too which was HUGE in the mid 80s discotheques.

blimey - had no idea re that 12".
Rob Gordon involvement = bet it sounds amazing.

I only discovered Love Street a couple of months ago! Only seen the video and the song sounds great, seems like a great time, and yet I can't help but to giggle at the look of Mal in that video!

i don't think i've ever seen that video before. so good!

Cabs vs Robert Gordon : the bassline on this is very widescreen.
love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7TCR6gQKoA

They also had that New order thing of mostly having very attractive (and, therefore, easier to buy on spec) record covers esp once Brody got involved. I really liked looking at the aesthetics of photographing and manipulating video images, it was very 80s but it was really smart looking.

yeah, the Brody covers were absolutely perfect.
and then it was over to tDR for a while, which again totally suited the music.
the new releases may look tDR, but they are not.

watching the gasoline in your eye tape on youtube rn. one day i want to write something that has a similar effect to what these image loops have on me, grimy, polluted inside, unearthed from a basement with thousands of other unmarked tapes, garbled transmissions, more noise than signal

if the drinking gasoline ep included "automotivation," "diffusion," and "slow boat to thassos" it would pretty easily be my favorite cabs release of all time.... lol..... frustrating