The unfortunate passing of Richard H. Kirk has, somewhat predictably, resulted in my listening to quite a lot of Cabaret Voltaire of late; and this one has stood out partially because it didn't make much of an impression at first, sounding as it does somewhat basic in contrast to The Voice of America to which it was approximately contemporary, but also because it doesn't really sound like anything else from their back catalogue - although I should probably add that I haven't heard that boxed set comprising a million CDs worth of out-takes and the like.
As you possibly know, Chance Versus Causality is the soundtrack to an experimental film by Babeth Mondini, improvised live by the lads without actually seeing the film. It's very much the opposite of multilayered, often with just a single weird atonal noise occupying the stereo field for some time and very little that's conspicuously musical - snatches of heavily treated guitar being employed for effect rather than in pursuit of anything melodic which therefore may as well be a hoover or something. Edits are often abrupt and incongruous, as is the dry insertion of taped dialogue played both forwards and backwards, amounting to something which suggests the early days of experimental film without the benefit of a visual dimension - unless you're sat looking at the cover. It works through application of the unexpected, through contrast, and through what may well have been a concerted effort to avoid the conventionally musical, arguably placing it more in the realm of Pierre Schaeffer and, I suppose, maybe Stan Brakhage, than even Gristle's After Cease to Exist soundtrack which sounds positively Ennio Morricone by comparison. It's crude, effective, and still sounds surprising after all this time and the more technically sophisticated efforts we've heard since; and, despite the minimalism, it's immediately identifiable as the work of Cabaret Voltaire.
I've seen them written off as overrated in recent years, and I disagree. As a group who worked with semi-improvised grooves rather than anything more obviously structured it's inevitable that some albums were more convincing than others, and the live albums tend to fall under the category of things which probably sounded better if you were there; but even their most chugging pieces never sounded like anyone else, retaining so strong an identity as to render most tribute acts sounding so derivative as to be pointless - although both Portion Control and Bourbonese Qualk admittedly found their own respective voices by the time it came to sticking a record out; and when they got it right, which was a lot of the time, they were genuinely astonishing, and I'd argue moreso than, in particular, even Gristle, through a reluctance to rely on shock effect for its own sake. I'm still not convinced that Chance Versus Causality is the lost classic described by most of the reviews I've seen, but it's a good indication of what made them so special and why we're still listening to this stuff four decades later.
As you possibly know, Chance Versus Causality is the soundtrack to an experimental film by Babeth Mondini, improvised live by the lads without actually seeing the film. It's very much the opposite of multilayered, often with just a single weird atonal noise occupying the stereo field for some time and very little that's conspicuously musical - snatches of heavily treated guitar being employed for effect rather than in pursuit of anything melodic which therefore may as well be a hoover or something. Edits are often abrupt and incongruous, as is the dry insertion of taped dialogue played both forwards and backwards, amounting to something which suggests the early days of experimental film without the benefit of a visual dimension - unless you're sat looking at the cover. It works through application of the unexpected, through contrast, and through what may well have been a concerted effort to avoid the conventionally musical, arguably placing it more in the realm of Pierre Schaeffer and, I suppose, maybe Stan Brakhage, than even Gristle's After Cease to Exist soundtrack which sounds positively Ennio Morricone by comparison. It's crude, effective, and still sounds surprising after all this time and the more technically sophisticated efforts we've heard since; and, despite the minimalism, it's immediately identifiable as the work of Cabaret Voltaire.
I've seen them written off as overrated in recent years, and I disagree. As a group who worked with semi-improvised grooves rather than anything more obviously structured it's inevitable that some albums were more convincing than others, and the live albums tend to fall under the category of things which probably sounded better if you were there; but even their most chugging pieces never sounded like anyone else, retaining so strong an identity as to render most tribute acts sounding so derivative as to be pointless - although both Portion Control and Bourbonese Qualk admittedly found their own respective voices by the time it came to sticking a record out; and when they got it right, which was a lot of the time, they were genuinely astonishing, and I'd argue moreso than, in particular, even Gristle, through a reluctance to rely on shock effect for its own sake. I'm still not convinced that Chance Versus Causality is the lost classic described by most of the reviews I've seen, but it's a good indication of what made them so special and why we're still listening to this stuff four decades later.
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