Description
Cabaret Voltaire – Mix Up – Cassette
Mix Up is the debut studio album by the British electronic music band Cabaret Voltaire, released in 1979.
Cabaret Voltaire was formed in Sheffield, England, in the 1970s. The band consisted of Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder, and Chris Watson, although Watson left the band shortly after the release of Mix Up.
The album is often categorized as post-punk, industrial, and experimental electronic music. It showcases Cabaret Voltaire’s pioneering approach to electronic sound manipulation and sampling.
Mix Up features a total of nine tracks, including ‘Kirlian Photograph,’ ‘No Escape,’ and ‘Photophobia.’ The album’s tracks often incorporate elements of tape manipulation, synthesizers, drum machines, and found sounds.
Mix Up is considered a groundbreaking album in the electronic music genre, influencing subsequent generations of musicians and producers. It helped establish Cabaret Voltaire as innovators in the use of electronic technology in music production.
Mix Up remains a critically acclaimed album and a key release in Cabaret Voltaire’s discography. It set the stage for the band’s continued exploration of electronic music and experimentation with sound.
Mix Up is a seminal album that highlights Cabaret Voltaire’s early experimentation with electronic music and their contributions to the development of industrial and electronic genres.
It’s true that Cabaret Voltaire’s first two proper studio albums hardly match the greatness of later works like Red Mecca, 2 X 45, and even 3 Crepuscule Tracks. Despite this, both Mix-Up and The Voice of America, rather similar records that were released back to back in 1979 and 1980. Helped solidify Cabaret Voltaire’s status as an integral part of the extended frisson of 1978-1982 post-punk, so if they had ceased to exist before their best work, it would still be very correct to refer to them as important.
Mix-Up, their first album, impressively harnesses noise, primitive rhythm box percolations, tape loops, garbled vocals, and blasts of Farfisa. ‘Kirlian Photograph’ is an ugly slab of dub with frizzling snaps of white-heat buzz, clunky percussion, and a plodding bassline forming its skanking, roiling rhythm. Both the bass and incidental vocals are relegated to the back of the mix as the piercing detritus takes center stage. A cover of the Seeds’ ‘No Escape’ evidences Cabaret Voltaire’s paradox as a seemingly anti-rockist band who was a garage band.
For all the manual binning and sandblasting of rock’s elemental properties, the band could take an acid-damaged rock song like ‘No Escape’ and make it sound even more damaged while retaining its spirit, nerve, and structure.
Mute Records
Song List
Kirlian Photograph
No Escape
Fourth Shot
Heaven And Hell
Eyeless Sight – (live)
Photophobia
On Every Other Street
Expect Nothing
Capsules
