Cabaret
Voltaire – Red Mecca (Mute)
Vinyl/CD/DL
Out Now
Thirty-two
years! Count them. Thirty-two years since Red Mecca was first
released. I’d like to say it sounds like
only yesterday, but, it doesn’t. It
seems a lifetime away. It seems as
though Cabaret Voltaire were still testing the water for experimental
industrial music, and that whilst everyone raved about how good the album was,
they would soon move on and forget about it.
In a well-timed move by Mute, the album heads a stream of re-released
Cabs classics to have you whipping yourself up into a lather.
The final
album with co-founder Chris Watson, Red Mecca, came during a period when
tensions were high on the streets of Britain and it was seen as the alternative
soundtrack of the time.
Opener, A
Touch Of Evil, sets the scene for the album with its post industrial jazz
theme, ensuring the listener is aware that this is no album for the faint
hearted. There are early signs of the
incisive Cabaret Voltaire drum sound and throbbing bass which would become a
trademark of the band in later years as Richard H Kirk and Stephen Mallinder
continued to break new ground.
The
distorted, twisted vocals on Sly Doubt accompany the raw feel of the track and
the introduction of electronic dub is also prevalent. In the wake of Joy Division and before the
explosion of Britain’s electronic brigade of the early 80s, the Cabaret
Voltaire sound unwittingly set the scene for the fellow Sheffield band The
Human League with their Reproduction and Travelogue albums. Indeed their single Being Boiled could be
seen as a commercial extension to what they were doing at the time.
What Kirk
and Mallinder did with Red Mecca had never been done before, and, has never
been done since. Modern contempories
such as Portion Control clearly have a lot to thank them for, particularly on
tracks like Red Mask. Does Red Mecca
sound dated? Well yes, it does, but at
the time it was relevant and so many things have happened in music since then,
but, time doesn’t make it irrelevant, in the same way that Punk is still a
milestone in British music, so is Cabaret Voltaire.
Red Mecca
is an important album and should be heard by all. It precedes a mighty
re-release of the groups mid-term albums from 1983-1985 due later this year and
will undoubtedly re-ignite old passions.
Hopefully, it will also create a spark in many new ones.
8.5/10
Links
Published on Louder Than War 6/08/13 - here
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