'Draft 7.30' by Autechre, 'Methodology '74/'78: The attic tapes' by Cabaret Voltaire
by Ian Simmons
[ cdreviews ]
It is unlikely that the music made today by Autechre would exist without Cabaret Voltaire, the archetypal bedroom electronica gurus. While the Cabs originally came to prominence in 78/9 as part of the electronic primitivist strand of punk along with The Normal, Robert Rental, The Human League and Throbbing Gristle, they had actually been beavering away in backrooms since at least 1974. But whereas today's DIY electronica artists get their results digitally, prodding away at ProTools and AudioMulch on laptops, back in the Seventies Cabaret Voltaire did it the hard way, with tape loops and primitive oscillators. Two things are surprising: first, how quickly the signature Cabaret Voltaire sound gelled. Even on the '74 disc it is there, an alienated motorik rush overlaid with Dalek vocals or strife-laden samples from TV news, or a blurred, twitching sinister ambience. There is virtually no embarrassing juvenilia here, except perhaps, for the 1974 track 'The Single', which is uncharacteristically goofy. Secondly, how modern it all sounds. If this came on a CD released today, it would still sound fresh and alive. The three CDs here chart the band's movement from the early experiments to their first fame and contain work every bit as vivid as their subsequent records, and a good deal better than some.
By the time dance music came to prominence in the late Eighties, Cabaret Voltaire had run themselves into the creative sand and were not able to produce any coherent response to the upsurge of new electronic creativity bursting forth, but their baton passed to a whole new generation of musicians. Among these, Autechre are probably the most consistently surprising and satisfying, and while they may not share the Cabs' Sheffield background, they are definitely among their spiritual heirs and they signed to a label that was, at the time, Sheffield-based. Draft 7.30 is easily their best work to date, fusing hip hop sensibilities to a background in British electronica it utilises an extensive palette of disrupted beats, roars, hums and echoes, each track evolving and expanding, commanding the space it occupies with sublime confidence. Autechre are never satisfied with just sitting in a groove, as soon as a track seems to settle, they are back at it, ruthlessly breaking up the stasis and sending it on to new highs. In this way every track is in constant motion, even at a microtonal level. This really is an album of impressive confidence and the sound of a band at the top of their game.
If one thing is slightly annoying about either of these discs, it is the packaging. Autechre's in impressively minimal, with lots of swirly computer graphic ribbon forms, but absolutely bugger all information, bar the track listing (very small). The Cab's collection, I think, does not fail on the information content. I say I think, because I can't actually tell. There is a booklet in the box, and the pages do appear to have writing on them, but this is overprinted on a very busy background in the same silver and black colouring, so when it comes to what the thing actually says, your guess is as good as mine. OK, it is an impressively accurate stab at replicating post-punk graphics, but successfully mimics their main failings more than their triumphs.
