Cabaret Voltaire -- Colours

(Mute / Plastex 61196)

Since the late ‘70’s, Cabaret Voltaire has been involved with what has been labeled "industrial music." Rather than pursuing the more "elemental" and aggressive aspects of this genre (a strain championed by such metal-banging nihilists as Einsturzende Neubauten), the ‘Cabs have stressed the mechanical edge of industrial; ‘mechanical" in this case meaning the effacement of the human component (i.e. the sunshiney and reassuring presence of guitar-drum-bass) and valorization of both the processes of production (the technology, in other words) and electronics (this from a band that puts on a top-notch and very kinetic live performance).

While they’ve followed a certain set path throughout their career, Cabaret Voltaire’s work can yet be divided into two periods: an early, formative series of recordings which still employ "traditional" rock instrumentation and that make a radical use of dissonance and noise. . . and a later set of records that stress danceable rhythms, perversely reworking the feel of ‘70’s soul and disco. It is the music of this second phase that has attracted a larger audience for the band and garnered them several hits on the club circuit. Colors not only belongs to this phase, it functions as its culmination, or apogee.

The seven tracks on this album-length set are not only the most dance-conscious yet from Cabaret Voltaire, they are also those in which signs of life have been most completely eradicated. The effect is an indication of how successfully the band’s vision has been executed on the present work. Colors is wholly a product of studio magic. There are no strings or drums anywhere (drum machines aplenty, however). Even the necessary (or vestigial) human touch of the "singer" has been diminished by the slick filtering of the vocals and exploitation of the most banal disco cliches for the lyrics. it’s almost as if the words, rather than written by an individual, are merely the product (or remains) of other records, just so many snippets of tape. The effect is enhanced by the mantra-like repetition of certain loaded words or phrases during the songs. Indeed, the grooves aren’t only those provided by the rhythmic insistence of the keyboards and digital sampling, but also the traces or marks virtually carved out by the process -- the work of machinery only vaguely and distantly operated by flesh-and-blood beings.

Because of this explicit dependence on technology, playing Colors is somewhat like navigating a labyrinth; rather than leading back to some source of origin in a performance or a particular performer, the music folds back -- reflects -- only on the processes of its production, revealing itself as the impersonal calculus or sum of technical wizardry that all records, especially in the digital age, are to some extent.

Obviously, as such, Cabaret Voltaire will have limited appeal to those anxiously in pursuit of a traditional rock forever linked to the cult of personality, i.e. the physical appearance of band members, etc.

However, for those in search of powerful dance music that also cogently comments on the de-humanizing and de-humanized face of post-modern culture, this band and the boldest formulation of its method to date will have all the force of a revelation.

--- Phil Pegg / Catharsis #23 - Jan. 1992