Das Kabinette
Spy Thriller

How many orgasms, strictly sonorous, did I experience while listening to the only discographic release of the English band Das Kabinette.

A band unknown to the majority of the public, that's true, but a group sufficiently original to be remembered as among the most valid exponents of the "Minimal Wave" of the '80s.

As already explained in other reviews, the phenomenon in question mainly took root in Europe and spread like wildfire among all the lovers of New Wave and Synth Pop who, without money, aspired to record an album. Often it was just one album but, overall, without the rediscovery of this wave and these obscure releases, we wouldn't be here talking about groups like Das Ding, Solid Space, or Dark Day (the latter being among the few Americans to be included in the dark list).

So what was Minimal Wave then? The New Wave of the poor, indeed: the Synth Pop of the hopeless. Hopeless who at that time, we're talking about the early '80s, populated the old continent and eagerly devoured vinyl from the United Kingdom.

A lot of Swedish, English (indeed!), German, and Dutch formations. A genuinely DIY approach even if towards a subject that had as much to do with punk and hardcore as cabbage with a snack.

Das Kabinette (is it really necessary to reiterate the reference to the famous silent film by Robert Wiene?), in their first and only "Spy Thriller", condensed darkwave melancholy with rhythms that, as usual, I love to define as "robotic".

The title track, “Passionkiller”, “Something’s On Your Mind”, "Carousel" and the other tracks that compose this album are sound testimonies of an era now distant but made of true passion and dedication to the cause of a genre as introspective as few others.