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
's foundational contribution to the
electronic
and
industrial
genres that would burgeon in the '80s and '90s. The sound of late-'70s
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
"On Every Other Street"
from
Mix-Up
(1979). The incorporation of found sounds on the more abstract
"Baader Meinhoff"
underscores the notion that
'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
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
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
's role as
electro-industrial
pioneers alongside the likes of
Throbbing Gristle
. ~ Wilson Neate