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Industrial Evolution: Through the Eighties With Cabaret Voltaire
In the 80s, harsh market forces confronted Local Authorities and Independent record labels alike. Industrial Evolution juxtaposes Britain's leader Margaret Thatcher's stringent initiatives to privatise Local Government, with Cabaret Voltaire's rise to Indie stardom. On the one hand the Government went head-to-head with the Trades Unions, on the other Cabaret Voltaire's fiercely independent ethics met head on with major record labels, A&R men and the business of "shifting units". Industrial Evolution is a cautionary tale, of rampant Conservatism running roughshod over industrial England.
- GenresMusicNonfictionBiography
287 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 30, 2011
A while back, former Cabaret Voltaire member Stephen Mallinder appeared on the Red Bull Academy fielding questions about his years in the seminal electro/industrial Sheffield band. He recalled a moment when the group was still a trio with Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson and they were invited to participate in a festival of musique concrete in France. Mal describes how all the luminaries of acousmatic music were present. But rather than embracing the band as a new generation of fixed-sound architects, the musique concrete elite were horrified by the bands punk rock attitude and noise anarchism.
In retrospect, the band marks an interesting gap between the European experimental music tradition, namely following Pierre Schaeffer, and the American Beats - specifically William Burroughs. After all, a large part of the affinity between the early Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle was precisely a shared indebtedness to the Burroughs-Gyson cut-up method. For many onlookers at the time, the experimentalism of the Sheffield noise-makers was deemed a continuation of the strategies of cut and loop from the GRM scene around Schaeffer. Some would argue that the Cabs rescued musique concrete from its dry academic orientation and returned it to the avant-garde agonism that began with Dada. However, if this were truly the case, then it wasn't by way of the French at all but via Burroughs. In fact, the band provide a necessary case study for why the cut-up method should not be made synonymous with Schaeffer's cut and loop. If we reduce the difference to one of attitude then it is an attitude with material and linguistic consequences. In fact, it is in language that the cut takes place and not in the technocentric experimentalism of the high avant-garde. Language, drugs, a lurid fascination with the grotesque and a rage against bourgeois normativity and control, this is the basis of the cut-up.
Mick Fish's interviews with the band in the mid to late 1980s were first compiled and published in the book, The Art of the Sixth Sense. Fish would eventually release the book on his own imprint, SAF Publications -- a crucial resource for books on Britain's industrial culture of the '80s and beyond.
In Industrial Evolution, Fish releases those interviews for the third time. However, the bulk of the book is given over to an autobiographical account of the author's life in the '80s divided between alcohol-fueled weekends in Sheffield hanging out with Cabaret Voltaire and weeks working for the local Council at a rubbish depot. Between these poles of experience, Fish stitches together a description of the consequences of Thatcherite policies on all quarters of everyday life for young working class Brits; from the destruction of trade unions, the increasing pressures from government austerity, and the impact of these on even the most sub of sub-cultures. Thus, what begins as a revolution in cultural autonomy eventually, by the end of the '80s becomes completely absorbed in the monopolies of corporate entertainment. Cabaret Voltaire, the band, comes to epitomize this trajectory from their independent roots in labels like Rough Trade and Factory through Virgin records and then, finally by 1988, a contract with the entertainment conglomerate EMI.
I read The Art of the Sixth Sense many years ago and really appreciated the interviews with their portrait of three working class men balancing the demands of supporting themselves through their art and adhering to a principled working class ethic. Industrial Evolution provides the larger story behind those interviews. A filmmaker would attempt to bring the two texts together, cutting between Fish's vivid images of life as a council worker and hanging out in pubs with the Sheffield musicians and then the more sober reflections of those same musicians. But here we have the two texts separated out.
As a piece of music writing, the author is deeply invested in his own impressions and positions. The Virgin years, specifically the album The Crackdown is seen as the high point in the band's output. Conversely, the Chicago House of 1990s Groovy Laidback and Nasty is dismissed as pointless and evidence of the band's surrender to crass commercialism. Mal was suddenly singing, for Chrissakes. Fish is not alone in those opinions. On the numerous live recordings released by the band over the years, one can always hear audience members calling out between songs, Nag Nag Nag or, give us Yashar. With all the support of EMI, the band found itself more exposed to their fans than ever. And yet all most of their fans wanted to hear was material from ten-years before.
But is the issue whether the band sold out? Moral arguments like this are always limited and the stuff of fanboys (sic). Clearly in terms of Kirk's own trajectory, he has spent more years and released more records in the idiom of house than anything the Cabs were doing in 1979. In fact, presented with the opportunity to thoroughly remix the soundtrack to the Peter Care film, "Johnny Yesno" on the just released (Nov 2011) Johnny Yesno Redux, Kirk continues his exploration in electronic dance rhythms of a post-acid idiom. As for Mal, during the aforementioned Red Bull Academy appearance, his Cabaret Voltaire track of choice is the still-breathtaking A Guy Called Gerald remix of Hypnotised from 1989. Once the boys went House, they never went back.
This, it seems to me, brings us to an important point that few connoisseurs of industrial music, scholars of Burroughs's impact on the punk generation, or scholars of musique concrete seem to consider. What is the relationship between music and the body? And, more precisely, a collectivity that assembled to embody the listening to sound and rhythm. What does it mean for working class youth in the post-industrial world to not only identify with but give their lives to the blues, whether the blues assume the idiom of jazz, funk, or dub? It's a problematic question. But it's a question that rarely gets a serious consideration in the white world of academia or music fanboys. In what way, is Cabaret Voltaire blues music? In this sense, the entire dementia concretia of Cabaret Voltaire remains crucial listening.
In retrospect, the band marks an interesting gap between the European experimental music tradition, namely following Pierre Schaeffer, and the American Beats - specifically William Burroughs. After all, a large part of the affinity between the early Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle was precisely a shared indebtedness to the Burroughs-Gyson cut-up method. For many onlookers at the time, the experimentalism of the Sheffield noise-makers was deemed a continuation of the strategies of cut and loop from the GRM scene around Schaeffer. Some would argue that the Cabs rescued musique concrete from its dry academic orientation and returned it to the avant-garde agonism that began with Dada. However, if this were truly the case, then it wasn't by way of the French at all but via Burroughs. In fact, the band provide a necessary case study for why the cut-up method should not be made synonymous with Schaeffer's cut and loop. If we reduce the difference to one of attitude then it is an attitude with material and linguistic consequences. In fact, it is in language that the cut takes place and not in the technocentric experimentalism of the high avant-garde. Language, drugs, a lurid fascination with the grotesque and a rage against bourgeois normativity and control, this is the basis of the cut-up.
Mick Fish's interviews with the band in the mid to late 1980s were first compiled and published in the book, The Art of the Sixth Sense. Fish would eventually release the book on his own imprint, SAF Publications -- a crucial resource for books on Britain's industrial culture of the '80s and beyond.
In Industrial Evolution, Fish releases those interviews for the third time. However, the bulk of the book is given over to an autobiographical account of the author's life in the '80s divided between alcohol-fueled weekends in Sheffield hanging out with Cabaret Voltaire and weeks working for the local Council at a rubbish depot. Between these poles of experience, Fish stitches together a description of the consequences of Thatcherite policies on all quarters of everyday life for young working class Brits; from the destruction of trade unions, the increasing pressures from government austerity, and the impact of these on even the most sub of sub-cultures. Thus, what begins as a revolution in cultural autonomy eventually, by the end of the '80s becomes completely absorbed in the monopolies of corporate entertainment. Cabaret Voltaire, the band, comes to epitomize this trajectory from their independent roots in labels like Rough Trade and Factory through Virgin records and then, finally by 1988, a contract with the entertainment conglomerate EMI.
I read The Art of the Sixth Sense many years ago and really appreciated the interviews with their portrait of three working class men balancing the demands of supporting themselves through their art and adhering to a principled working class ethic. Industrial Evolution provides the larger story behind those interviews. A filmmaker would attempt to bring the two texts together, cutting between Fish's vivid images of life as a council worker and hanging out in pubs with the Sheffield musicians and then the more sober reflections of those same musicians. But here we have the two texts separated out.
As a piece of music writing, the author is deeply invested in his own impressions and positions. The Virgin years, specifically the album The Crackdown is seen as the high point in the band's output. Conversely, the Chicago House of 1990s Groovy Laidback and Nasty is dismissed as pointless and evidence of the band's surrender to crass commercialism. Mal was suddenly singing, for Chrissakes. Fish is not alone in those opinions. On the numerous live recordings released by the band over the years, one can always hear audience members calling out between songs, Nag Nag Nag or, give us Yashar. With all the support of EMI, the band found itself more exposed to their fans than ever. And yet all most of their fans wanted to hear was material from ten-years before.
But is the issue whether the band sold out? Moral arguments like this are always limited and the stuff of fanboys (sic). Clearly in terms of Kirk's own trajectory, he has spent more years and released more records in the idiom of house than anything the Cabs were doing in 1979. In fact, presented with the opportunity to thoroughly remix the soundtrack to the Peter Care film, "Johnny Yesno" on the just released (Nov 2011) Johnny Yesno Redux, Kirk continues his exploration in electronic dance rhythms of a post-acid idiom. As for Mal, during the aforementioned Red Bull Academy appearance, his Cabaret Voltaire track of choice is the still-breathtaking A Guy Called Gerald remix of Hypnotised from 1989. Once the boys went House, they never went back.
This, it seems to me, brings us to an important point that few connoisseurs of industrial music, scholars of Burroughs's impact on the punk generation, or scholars of musique concrete seem to consider. What is the relationship between music and the body? And, more precisely, a collectivity that assembled to embody the listening to sound and rhythm. What does it mean for working class youth in the post-industrial world to not only identify with but give their lives to the blues, whether the blues assume the idiom of jazz, funk, or dub? It's a problematic question. But it's a question that rarely gets a serious consideration in the white world of academia or music fanboys. In what way, is Cabaret Voltaire blues music? In this sense, the entire dementia concretia of Cabaret Voltaire remains crucial listening.
January 6, 2015
A fascinating look back at a time in music I was too young to enjoy, and a time in politics I was thankfully too young to enjoy. Also, having lived in Sheffield, it was good fun identifying and picturing where things went on. Glad to hear places like The Washington have barely changed... As for Cabaret Voltaire, confirmation for me, as if any were needed, that they were years ahead of their time.
July 20, 2020
Excellent book about the brilliant group Cabaret Voltaire but also about the author's life and how he got involved with the band, worth checking out if you watched live music and drank in Sheffield in the early 1980s
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews