Cabaret Voltaire first performed live during a student
disco at Sheffield University in 1975. In keeping with the group's Dadaist ethos, the show was cut short as the audience -- expecting
rock music, not challenging
noise experiments -- invaded the stage and attacked the trio. Recorded in London four years after that ill-fated debut, this live set proceeds without incident and provides evidence of
Cabaret Voltaire's foundational contribution to the
electronic and
industrial genres that would burgeon in the '80s and '90s. The sound of late-'70s
Cabaret Voltaire featured here is sparse and austere:
Stephen Mallinder's bass and
Richard H. Kirk's guitar, supplemented with basic drum-machine beats, primitive synth, and
Chris Watson's cut-and-paste tape loops. The band's harsh
minimalism is encapsulated on tracks like
"The Set Up" from 1978's
Extended Play and
"On Every Other Street" from
Mix-Up (1979). The incorporation of found sounds on the more abstract
"Baader Meinhoff" underscores the notion that
Cabaret Voltaire's early work often had more in common with
musique concrete than
pop music. Whereas
the Velvet Underground's
"Here She Comes Now" is rendered largely unrecognizable, certain numbers show that the trio was able to fashion their paired-down sonic experiments into more conventional song formats (for instance, the
Joy Division-esque
"No Escape" and the droning and distorted
electronic garage charge of
"Nag, Nag, Nag"). That the galloping beat of
"Havoc" recalls the
Doctor Who theme is not as odd as it might seem;
the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was an important influence on
British electronic and
industrial artists, and moreover,
Kirk,
Mallinder, and
Watson had covered that track with a 1977 side project,
the Studs. Although this album isn't
easy listening -- and of course it wasn't intended to be -- it documents
Cabaret Voltaire's role as
electro-industrial pioneers alongside the likes of
Throbbing Gristle. ~ Wilson Neate