Cabaret Voltaire
2 x 45

In the very early '80s, even the "Sheffield Scene", generally serious and austere, was infected by that pandemic of rhythmic fever that had already spread in many sectors of the new wave: a dark synth band like Vice Versa changed its skin and company name, flaunting, as ABC, a new and sparkling disco livery; the cerebral Clock DVA, after the split, launched into the spectacular evolved funk of "Passions Still Aflame", not avoiding, however, pairing it with a 12" single that would have made Chic envious.

It was as if, even in that steelworking land, the new icons to worship had become dance floors and strobe lights rather than sheds and blast furnaces as had happened until then.

Cabaret Voltaire, a company founded in 1973 and dedicated for years to a humble electronic craft with very dark hues, did not escape the disease, moreover, without major identity losses or too many concessions to commerce. Still sacrificed in the hermetic "Red Mecca" of '81, in this subsequent double EP lapidarily titled "2 x 45", the rhythm also explodes with great fury, produced for the first time full-time with traditional instruments. Years of experiments and some loose change spent on new technology have also allowed the three to move away from the clochard electronics of their beginnings, all low fidelity, self-built fuzzboxes, and second-hand drum machines, to arrive at a brilliantly and magnificently produced sound. Let's also add some little ideas that came at the right time and well-focused, in short, what in art is called inspiration (which, they say, makes the difference) and here are the results, best condensed in the first part of the work, recorded in their historic den and with C. Watson for the last time in the game: "Breathe Deep": as if the R&B of the first Dexy's Midnight Runners were washed in vitriol, kneaded with sand, and nebulized with a compressor; "Yashar": a very tight background for a lascivious belly dance, set in a Berber camp on a Martian desert; "Protection": direct line with a dance floor from the underworld with S. Mallinder acting as a satanic DJ, inciting hordes of the damned to a wild sabbath.

A step or two below, the second disc (recorded away and without Watson anymore) in which the sense of proportion is somewhat lacking (it is known that as composers they were not exactly eagles and tended to go a bit long), but where the cavernous "Wait and Shuffle" stands out with unearthly guitar and sax overtones that pierce like a Black & Decker through a very syncopated sound fabric, and "Get Out Of My Face", admittedly tedious, but historically significant as techno "ante litteram". It might be better to overlook the long-distance evolution of the two survivors and certainly to ignore the abuses bordering on mistreatment by some critics on the substance of the group: on this occasion, which definitively closes the Rough Trade period, the C.V.'s have nevertheless produced like never before, powerful and communicative music, articulated in suggestions and of great physical impact.

For those who today are nourished by Industrial-death-techno-brutal-grind-etc.-core, these sounds, indeed anything but "easy", may seem like a chorus of chanting Ursuline nuns; for the writer, however, the record withstands the years with great honor without losing a gram of its strength. Absolutely among the best of the period.