CABARET VOLTAIRE'S place as electronic innovators is only too apparent in these days when labels like Warp are rightly regarded as boundary pushing.
The thing is, though, that the Cabs initially forged their weird, dislocated soundworld with the most primitive of analogue equipment: the kind of reel-to-reel tape recorders and basic monophonic synths that would be considered Smithsonian relics today.
It's also important to bear in mind that most of these strange, experimental tracks were conceived during the period 1974- 76 when Prog, long hair and flares still held sway. Indeed,the fact that such curious, wibbly electronica could possibly be cultivated in the undergrowth of such staid times seems all the more remarkable today.
Now, your reviewer is a complete Cabsaholic (especially where the early gear's concerned), so he's hardly liable to point you in the opposite direction here, but he still believes a note of caution must be sounded at this point. For while a 3CD set comprising 53 tracks from the Cabs' experimental early years may sound like a treasure stove for the enthusiast, you may find many of their earliest journeys into loops, radio broadcasts, found sounds and (very) primitive sampling hard to digest if you're only familiar with "Nag Nag Nag" and the catchier snippets of their pulsing, paranoia pop.
Indeed, much of the first two discs here feature unsettling experimental tracks rather than anything approaching "songs" as such. Richard Kirk plays disconnected slivers of clarinet or sax; Chris Watson's tape loops bring in crescendoes, sounds of planes taking off and the like, while other tracks find the Cabs fucking around with vocal distirtion and loops (one where Stephen Mallinder reads what sounds like ads in the Exchange & Mart against his own speeded up alien voice is particularly good) drones, snippets of radio commentary and a plethora of jarring distortionoia.
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By the time the third CD looms into view, the more familiar elements of the Cabs' engagingly alien oeuvre are slotting into place. The pulses, rhythms, distorted and modulated vocals are there, as are raw and nervy run-throughs of early classics like "The Set-Up" and the chilling "Do The Mussolini(Headkick)" with Mallinder's vocal ("the partisans kick the corpse") clearer and cutting through effectively.
It gets even better, actually. The Cabs' maniacally strung -out take of the Velvets' "Here She Comes Now" even teaches Lou's mob a thing or two about numbed out angst, while the spaced-out early take of "No Escape" is fully-fledged and fabulous and a rough hoover-blast "Nag Nag Nag" is as snotty and malevolent as hell.
By the time "Methodology" winds up, Cabaret Voltaire's brooding, post-Watergate hypno-pop has been finely, controversally honed. The road they took to arrive there is rough, rocky and not without its share of potholes and you will need a high tolerance level to sit out CDS 1 and 2 on a regular basis.
Reservations aside, though, this is still a welcome and fascinating insight into the modus operandi of one of our best - and most uncompromising - electronic outfits who continue to lead the field in terms of sounding contemporary even into the 21st Century.
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