Cabaret Voltaire – 1974 - 1976

One of those obscure albums from the group, this has been mostly forgotten to time and predates later industrial and harsh noise bands which followed the 70s and 80s. It's one of those experimental albums which provides a steady dose of tension and fear to the listener, and this is entirely done by cut-up tape techniques mixed with improvised instrumentation.

It's like the soundtrack to a silent hill game or a psychological horror film, it's not really music in the sense that it has melody, but is instead music in the sense that it's the background to what you perceive and imagine in front of you. Like any musique concrete album, the album attempts to draw listeners in through manipulated sounds, washy drum machines, and the occasional distorted voice and synthesizer droning in the background- In fact, alot of the album is essentially just the band messing around with random sounds and tape recorders with some effect units mixed in.

In the past, this album was seen as a harsh response to the fast-growing punk scene, which by many industrial acts was more closely aligned to the performance art scene of the 1970s (COUM transmissions)- After all, the Cabs were considered a "post-punk" band in some respects, whether that name is accurate or not is another question for another day. Nowadays, I believe it has lost most of that historical value as society has moved on and views the punk movement through a more mainstream lens (bands like Throbbing Gristle were considered punk bands in their heyday but are now recognized as the forerunners of the Industrial Music scene). So these days, this album is essentially just post-modernist music because of how it manages to communicate satire and unconventional music norms.

Anyways, you're probably not even interested in this review and just want to know how to find a physical copy of this which isn't a streaming version. The original cassette versions are virtually impossible to find due to most cassettes from IRC being recorded amateurishly in low numbers, so good luck on that end. However, It has been reissued on CD since the 90s (and is quite easy to find) and has even gotten a decent vinyl re-issue. Only problem being that it's spread across 2 disks. A Must buy for a fairly cheap price, imo.