IDM Mailing Archive

Thought maybe I'd start writing an occasional column about How We Got Here... If anybody likes it let me know. If you don't like it, go away. CABARET VOLTAIRE - CODE Well here we have an absolute perfect little moment of classic IDM history. First off, for all you newbies, Cabaret Voltaire is Richard H Kirk's "first band". (Just like Paul McCartney used to be in some other band, the name of which escapes me.) Code perfectly exemplifies this sort of mini-genre that was floating around England for a while - white boy electro funk. You've got your pounding drum machine beats, stuttering percussion & synth blips, fat analog basses, a little trebly funk guitar for effect and presto. I tend to think of this album as part of a trilogy of Adrian Sherwood-produced masterpieces, also including Ministry's "Twitch" and Mark Stewart's "As The Veneer Of Democracy Begins To Fade". Where Ministry had teen angst and Stewart had paranoia, CV have a politically conscious global view to their music. And let's not forget the middle initial in our benighted acronym - anybody who went to a club in 1987 and heard "Here To Go" or "Don't Argue" knows what kind of destruction the Sherwood-beats and Kirk-bleeps could wreak on a dancefloor. A generation of youth got inspired to pick up a sampler and twist off some serious noises by CV (Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto always used to name-check them as a major influence). Unfortunately CabVol has deteriorated to little more than another Kirk "lemmee noodle a little more" side project, and a not terribly interesting one at that. To further the tragedy, this album is apparently out of print on CD. I recommend you scour the cutout bins. This is a chunk of history here, and it will make you wiggle your bottom to boot. (Also recommended is "The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord" but it's way less funky than Code.) ---jsd "Sanity is a one trick pony...you only get one trick: rational thinking... but when you're good and crazy,the sky's the limit!!" - The Tick.

Ah yesss....good old CODE by CV...funny you mention Ministry's Twitch with this because I too see these as almost twin/counterpart albums, not so much becasue they sound alike (they don't) but becasue they both have the same degree of 80's alternative synth sophisication, and both are consistent throughout the albums. They rock. IDM record archive must haves. Actually I see CODE on CD every now and then, I ordered it through I think Tower of all places and I got a couple weeks later....hmmm. Actually, in an attempt to do ya one better, I think CV's Microphonies takes the cake for classic stuff. Funkier than Arm of the Lord, not as poppy as CODE, this is the first CD I ever heard (I mean back when CD's were new technology). Microphonies introduced me too 'weird electronica' (besides breakdance music) and I've been hooked ever since. How can you go wrong with titles like 'Digital Rasta', and 'James Brown'. I always thought CV/RHK had/have the coolest track names, and uh well the coolest tracks.. BTW Microphonies was produced by....FLOOD! enough babble... Nate Nate Harrison Digital Magician Inc. www.digimagician.com nate@digimagician.com 313.994.7316

quoted 6 lines Ah yesss....good old CODE by CV...funny you mention Ministry's Twitch with

> > Ah yesss....good old CODE by CV...funny you mention Ministry's Twitch with > this because I too see these as almost twin/counterpart albums, not so > much becasue they sound alike (they don't) but becasue they both have the > same degree of 80's alternative synth sophisication, and both are > consistent throughout the albums.

Actually, although they sound superficially quite different (with Jourgensen's raspy distorted vox and humorless melodies/CV's urgent funk in total contrast with each other) a lot of the drum programming tricks are the same. Fond memories of blasting "DOn't Argue" and pissing off all my floormates :-) Ashok

On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, Nate Harrison [Digital Magician Inc] wrote:

quoted 5 lines were new technology). Microphonies introduced me too 'weird electronica'

> were new technology). Microphonies introduced me too 'weird electronica' > (besides breakdance music) and I've been hooked ever since. How can you go > wrong with titles like 'Digital Rasta', and 'James Brown'. I always > thought CV/RHK had/have the coolest track names, and uh well the coolest > tracks.. BTW Microphonies was produced by....FLOOD!

And we musn't forget that middle eastern tinged classic, 'Sensoria'.... and that's all he wrote. Ross ;-)

quoted 1 line CABARET VOLTAIRE - CODE

>CABARET VOLTAIRE - CODE

Agreed. Wowie Zowie..

quoted 1 line Mark Stewart's "As The Veneer Of Democracy Begins To Fade".

>Mark Stewart's "As The Veneer Of Democracy Begins To Fade".

The sounds at the start of "The Resistance of the Cell" (a track on "As the Veneer...."): listen to that and talk about "the SOUND of SOUND".

quoted 4 lines forget the middle initial in our benighted acronym - anybody who went

>forget the middle initial in our benighted acronym - anybody who went >to a club in 1987 and heard "Here To Go" or "Don't Argue" knows what >kind of destruction the Sherwood-beats and Kirk-bleeps could wreak on >a dancefloor.

I would also recommend "The Crackdown". And "Sensoria". And for High Testosterone EBM from the same era: "No Devotion" and "We Shall Cleanse the World" by Revolting Cocks. Still haven't found a match for their "You Goddamn' Son of a Bitch" live album. Allert PS: Still in love with Ministry's "Everyday Is Halloween" and "Work for Love" -- "No corporation will ever pay a creator enough to sue them succesfully" -Dave Sim, creator of Cerebus Allert Aalders - Big Time Concepts - allert@knoware.nl - KoX

On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, Random Junk wrote: } Thought maybe I'd start writing an occasional column about How We Got } Here... If anybody likes it let me know. If you don't like it, go away. I like this idea a lot. Count me in. } CABARET VOLTAIRE - CODE [snip] } To further the tragedy, this album is apparently out of print on CD. } I recommend you scour the cutout bins. This is a chunk of history } here, and it will make you wiggle your bottom to boot. (Also } recommended is "The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord" but } it's way less funky than Code.) "Code" really is a great album. The only others I like a bit more by Cabaret Voltaire are "The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord" (which you mentioned), "Drinking Gasoline" (with those amazing staccato bass keyboard lines that I sadly don't hear much of anymore), and "The Drain Train" (.... "shakedown the whole thing" ... once you hear that electro funkiness you won't forget it!). Since no one else will probably admit it for fear of being pelted I'll go ahead and say that "Speak & Spell" by Depeche Mode was probably my first dose of electronica, which gave me the itch to continue into the world of IDM. When I first heard that album back in '84 I was struck by the minimal and catchy melodies created by purely electronic instruments. There was no looking back after that for me. Tracks like "Photographic", "New Life" and "Any Second Now (Voices)" will forever remain in my memory as starting points into this genre. Another album that really moved me around that time was Devo's "New Traditionalists". I still find myself listening to that one fairly often. On a related note I'm wondering if anyone can truly say that Ralf & Florian's album from '73 got them into IDM? Granted the album is a bit old, but maybe someone heard it later in their life -- or who knows maybe there are some 40 years olds here who were teenagers when this first came out? Anyway, I'll admit to hearing this only a couple of years ago, but the track "Tanzmuzik" is so ahead of it's time that I'm blown away at how ageless it seems now. A year later Kraftwerk came out with "Autobahn", another classic. Anyway, enough babbling. I hope to see more "roots of IDM" posts soon. Good idea Jon! | E r i c | [mail] franse@engr.arizona.edu | | F r a n s | [web] http://intermix.engr.arizona.edu/~franse | "Make the events occur that you want to occur" - The Black Dog

On Thu, 3 Apr 1997 17:17:09 -0800 (PST), you wrote:

quoted 4 lines Thought maybe I'd start writing an occasional column about How We Got

>Thought maybe I'd start writing an occasional column about How We Got >Here... If anybody likes it let me know. If you don't like it, go away. > >CABARET VOLTAIRE - CODE

haven't found that yet but my secret CV classics are _Easy Life_ 12" with the jive turkey mix and 2 corkers on the b side just about my all time fave record. 'if you will suck my soul, i will lick you funky emotion'. or somthing. _what is real_ - the instrumental 'virtuality' mix on the b-side sums up the period sheffield sound for me _keep on_ found this recently a side vocal mix is pants but 'sleazy dog remix' on the b-side is top and much to my surprise the B2 track is a mix by none other than mr. mayday.... g.

quoted 1 line haven't found that yet but my secret CV classics are

> haven't found that yet but my secret CV classics are

[..]

quoted 3 lines _what is real_ - the instrumental 'virtuality' mix on the b-side sums

> > _what is real_ - the instrumental 'virtuality' mix on the b-side sums > up the period sheffield sound for me

Yes! I remember how confusing "Body and Soul"'s funky minimalism was when it first came out, especially after the lush and rather poppy "Groovy Laidback and Nasty", but in retrospect it was a rather historic album. Kirk's sense of rhythm is just awesome. PS - this is full-on idm territory, not some loser industro-head waxing about yesteryear's glory days (although I do wonder about that sometimes :-) AD

On Fri, 04 Apr 1997 14:01:35 +0000 (GMT), you wrote:

quoted 14 lines haven't found that yet but my secret CV classics are

>> haven't found that yet but my secret CV classics are > >[..] > >> >> _what is real_ - the instrumental 'virtuality' mix on the b-side sums >> up the period sheffield sound for me > >Yes! I remember how confusing "Body and Soul"'s funky minimalism was when it >first came out, especially after the lush and rather poppy "Groovy Laidback >and Nasty", but in retrospect it was a rather historic album. Kirk's sense >of rhythm is just awesome. PS - this is full-on idm territory, not some loser >industro-head waxing about yesteryear's glory days (although I do >wonder about that sometimes :-)

yes you have to be rather careful with CV 98% of their material is really dodgy and you can get the wrong impression. g.

On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, g. wrote: } yes you have to be rather careful with CV 98% of their material is } really dodgy and you can get the wrong impression. Part of the beauty of CVs career is that they went all over the spectrum. I don't know about calling their stuff "dodgy", but if you mean it's hard to pinpoint their overall sound by listening to one release then yes. It took me awhile to appreciate their pre-"Crackdown" material, but it finally grew on me. My last purchase from CV was the brilliant "1974-1976" compilation. The track "Do The Snake" took me by suprise when I heard it for the first time -- "...come on everybody and do the snake....." -- odd. That song would be the perfect soundtrack for a scene out of a David Lynch movie... | E r i c | [mail] franse@engr.arizona.edu | | F r a n s | [web] http://intermix.engr.arizona.edu/~franse | "Make the events occur that you want to occur" - The Black Dog

Ooooh, nostalgia. One of my favorite topics. _Code_ is still, to me, CV's finest hour, just barely surpassing the extended "Sensoria," _The_Arm_Of_The_Lord_ and the "Drinking Gasoline" EP. When this album came out (bought it used for $8 when it was still in print in the US!), it completed my transition from being mostly into rock to being mostly into electronic music. It was just so... damn... cool. Funky, blippy, spacey... wow. "Commit yourself." Don't the vocals sort-of remind you of what Underworld does nowadays? Adrian Sherwood is truly a master. Everyone here should pick up the two Tackhead CD compilations _Power_Inc._ (vols 1 and 2) and the two discs (Mark Stewart and Ministry) that Jon mentioned, they are pure brilliance. "The Wrong Name And The Wrong Number" still scares me to death. :-) That six-year transition started in 1982/3 when two of my all-time favorite releases came out, the Art Of Noise's _(Who's_Afraid_Of?)_ and Thomas Dolby's "Blinded By Science" EP (the long version of "Flying North" still gives me shivers during that break in the middle; damn shame this track has never been released on CD). The AON disc was mind-blowing for a 13-year-old budding music lover. Then came New Order's "Confusion," Depeche Mode's "People Are People" 12" (incuding the On-USound remix in the US!), Yello's "Oh Yeah," Big Audio Dynamite's _This_Is_BAD_, Ministry's _Twitch_, Front 242's _Official_Version_ and Nitzer Ebb's "Murderous." By the time _Code_ came out, the transition was complete. My entries: I think it's fair to say that the Art Of Noise album (with its preceding EP "Into Battle") and the M|A|R|R|S single "Pump Up The Volume" deserve a place in the family tree of IDM as well. They both succeeded in making a very new music from very new technology that was both accessible and abstract. The aggressive rhythms, the strange noises, the head-snapping transitions, all things that we take for granted now. Every time I have to start my car in the winter I think of "Close (To The Edit)." :-) The otherworldy rhythm noises in the album's title track (and the repeatedly interrupted "Can I say something?" sample) are to die for, and the classic "Beat Box," with its truly huge drum track and vocal-sample bass-line, really stretched the idea of what you could do with a little ingenuity and a sampler. Five years later, the folks from AR Kane and Colourbox meshed the rhythms of the street with the technology of the day and came up with quite possibly the funkiest machine-generated one-off pop song ever. The constant rhythm changes, the incessant scratching, the other-worldly vox sample of Ofra Haza, etc., just astonishing. (Yes, I know this came out *after* (and borrowed ideas from) Coldcut's remix of "Paid In Full," but I think it had more overall impact.) NP: My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - _Confessions_Of_A_Knife..._ -- Adam J Weitzman Individual, Inc. "Are we here?" weitzman@individual.com - Orbital http://www.individual.com

Adam J Weitzman writes:

quoted 3 lines I think it's fair to say that the Art Of Noise album (with its preceding

> I think it's fair to say that the Art Of Noise album (with its preceding > EP "Into Battle") and the M|A|R|R|S single "Pump Up The Volume" deserve > a place in the family tree of IDM as well.

expect a column on AON soon! i think it's fair to say that "who's afraid of the art of noise" totally changed my life.

quoted 5 lines from AR Kane and Colourbox meshed the rhythms of the street with the

> from AR Kane and Colourbox meshed the rhythms of the street with the > technology of the day and came up with quite possibly the funkiest > machine-generated one-off pop song ever. The constant rhythm changes, > the incessant scratching, the other-worldly vox sample of Ofra Haza, > etc., just astonishing.

the thing i find most impressive to this day about stuff like M|A|R|R|S is how much effort they put into making it seem smooth and effortless. we're talking about programming the drum tracks in step time at 96 ppqn resolution. we're talking about laying the bassline down in two separate passes because their sequencer didn't do the right kind of swing to hack it in one pass. but it doesn't sound forced at all. that track is the quintessence of groove. compare against the plodding simplistic daft punk, for example... no contest. ---jsd "Sanity is a one trick pony...you only get one trick: rational thinking... but when you're good and crazy,the sky's the limit!!" - The Tick.

On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Random Junk wrote:

quoted 8 lines the thing i find most impressive to this day about stuff like

> the thing i find most impressive to this day about stuff like > M|A|R|R|S is how much effort they put into making it seem smooth and > effortless. we're talking about programming the drum tracks in step > time at 96 ppqn resolution. we're talking about laying the bassline > down in two separate passes because their sequencer didn't do the > right kind of swing to hack it in one pass. but it doesn't sound > forced at all. that track is the quintessence of groove. compare > against the plodding simplistic daft punk, for example... no contest.

Amen brother! Che

quoted 5 lines Sherwood is truly a master. Everyone here should pick up the two

> Sherwood is truly a master. Everyone here should pick up the two > Tackhead CD compilations _Power_Inc._ (vols 1 and 2) and the two discs > (Mark Stewart and Ministry) that Jon mentioned, they are pure > brilliance. "The Wrong Name And The Wrong Number" still scares me to > death. :-)

I was just going to post about this, tying this together with the TORQUE 2CD by Ed Rush/Nico and Panacea on Force Inc... I flipped through both of them, and decided on TORQUE. Both are kinda over-the-top, but I thought Panacea resorted to too many louder-than-thou cliches, substituting vanilla distortion for other freaky sound treatments that I think would have made the tracks much more effective. I may still pick this up at some point, but 2CDs of new jungle is enough to hold me for a week ;-) If you like Panacea, or Alec Empire's _The Destroyer_, track down a copy of _As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade_., by Mark Stewart, on Mute. It's the Fats Comet singles run through the mangling machine, with Mark Stewart's ultra-paranoid, and quite effective vocals. Keith LeBlanc said in an interview that Tackhead basically gave him a bunch of music which, in LeBlanc's opinion, he wrecked by literally recording on cassette, cutting with scissors, and pulling bits out of a bag. "The Wrong Name and The Wrong Number" is sort of a megamix of the tracks from the album. That track appears in it's full length (about 13 mins) on the CD of the 1st Mark Stewart album _Learning to Cope With Cowardice_ (more reggae-oriented, but nearly as frightening as _As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade_). The track also appears in a shorter form on a Myths compilation, and I think also on one of the Pay It All Back comps from ONUSound. One of my roommates in college said he had to leave or risk brain damage. Not to be missed. --Mark