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Forever hovering just below mainstream radar, but always a guiding force for darker electronic music, Cabaret Voltaire were an experimental force shaping the history of Industrial music since the early 1970s. Their earliest incarnation was alongside the sonic mayhem of Throbbing Gristle -- cold, rhythmic programming in a fog of noisy Musique Concrete and strangled Punk attitude. They explored the soul of noise by playing Funk basslines and rhythms so rigid, they made Kraftwerk sound like Bebop against complex, sampladelic tapestries and dissonant synth orchestrations. Guitars and vocals were used not as a driving rock force, but as decaying psychedelic textures. Their tracks always sound incredibly simple and sparing despite their layered complexity. Continually exploring sonic possibilities, they evolved further into the mechanics of the dancefloor, coming closer to the emerging genre of EBM (they were instrumental in its development), and then drifting into a dark form of House. However, throughout their evolution, they always produced music that was somehow more daring than their contemporaries without creating unlistenable stridor. Instead, they brought "unlistenable" noise into pop music. |