Way back in the mid 1990's Cabaret Voltaire ceased to be, their last output being The Conversation a two hour long album. By then so much in music owed a debt to The Cabs in their later phase of cut up and die dance music. Perhaps they were both a bit tired out with decades of unrelenting output. So they return, though it should really be he returns, that is Roland Kirk, with a whole album of fresh material. Stephen Mallinder having been lost to the Australian outback one fears.
The new album, Shadow of Fear is a refreshed amalgam of the two period styles of Cabaret Voltaire, the harsh scratchy guitar, found voice and sound tape loop cut ups and the more refined version laid over dance beats with the distinct drawl of a vocal. Shadow of Fear is classic CV, still stretching the musical envelope. They do sound cutting edge and contemporary despite their sound collage process being around for forty years or so. Maybe that's because so much of what passes for new music these days is thin beer compared to The Cabs.
Vasto is probably the most punchy and danceable of the tracks off the new album, also it has this wonderful video of lurid images layered and constantly shifting, suggestive without settling on anything recognisable. FAB.
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