There's a new one out of course, but having grasped the possibility of someone from Cabaret Voltaire still doing something worth listening to, I realised I should probably catch up with this one first. Wrangler features Stephen Mallinder, but probably shouldn't be regarded as Son of Cabaret Voltaire given the patently significant involvement of Ben Edwards and Phil Winter, as expressed in the predominance of vintage analogue synthesisers, or just proper synthesisers if you prefer. That said, Mallinder's characteristic mumbling growl is pretty distinctive, and musically it's very much a groove vaguely in the tradition of The Crackdown - that same sort of pulsing James Brown workout with sequencers popping away left, right and centre. Weirdly, for a record which sounds like it doesn't even make use of anything digital, let alone sampling technology, for something which sounds very much triggered and plumbed in and even seems to utilise what I'd swear is a spring-line reverb, LA Spark manages to sound surprisingly new and squeaky - fresh even. Aside from those already mentioned above, I was occasionally reminded of Kraftwerk back when they resembled Open University lecturers - which is odd given how Florian and the lads weren't particularly electronic back then - but Wrangler otherwise very much resembles its own animal - not even the electronic equivalent of the rockabilly revival I was half anticipating. Not only is there yet life in the old dog, but this might even be one of the best things with which Mallinder has been involved - which is eye opening considering how he doesn't appear to have aged since about 1985; and that the other bloke is now reduced to solo karaoke performances as Cabaret Voltaire, which strikes me as extremely poor form, but never mind.
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