1980 was a productive enough year all round for Sheffield’s Cabaret Voltaire, what with the release of the fine ‘Voice of America’ LP and ‘Seconds Too Late’ 7″, ‘Three Mantras’ 12″ singles as well as the ‘Live at the YMCA’ lo-fi live LP. All prime examples of the earlier, low-tech, abrasive Cabs sound. That they found time to also revisit past recordings and compile the featured cassette here, ‘1974-1976’, released on Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Industrial’ imprint, was even better.
Never been entirely sure where this fits into the grand Wire scheme of things, whether it is official, semi-official, unofficial – does it count as one of those ‘objects’ that numbered up to 47 at one point? I’m unsure, since it clearly has input from the band somehow or other, whether that be via the separate interviews or the exclusive live recordings – this is no mere cut and paste history in cuttings type affair. But neither is it an ‘Everybody Loves a History’ nor a ‘Read and Burn’. It shares a series with similar tomes on many other alternative favourites, more likely appearing due to quirks in Italian copyright law than official sanction, I’d wager.
Regular visitors will most likely know already my fondness for that ’80s staple, the mini-album and in ‘Jesus Egg That Wept’ we have a prime example. Six new tracks (plus the addition of a track from the previous ‘Pop Eyes’ LP, for some reason) was a good introduction for me to the wonderfully unique oddities of Danielle Dax. Sleeved in an eye-catchingly odd cover, this mini-album was at a good time all round for Danielle Dax, with 1984 also seeing her brief but significant role in the film, ‘The Company of Wolves’ as well as an appearance on the primetime ‘The Tube’ TV show (performing ‘Hammerheads’).
Continue reading “Danielle Dax ‘Jesus Egg That Wept’ UK Mini-Album (Awesome AOR1, 1984)”
Something of an indulgence in this post – ‘My Face’ was a previously unreleased track that John Foxx gave away to Smash Hits magazine in late 1980, issued via the medium of a one-sided, crackly bright yellow plastic flexidisc – and what you see here is it wrapped in my home made cover design of the time. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in putting together my own cover design – I was obviously trying to channel the spirit of the preceding ‘Burning Car’ and later ‘Europe After The Rain’ sleeve designs in typeface and coloured line elements when I got round to drafting this.
Continue reading “John Foxx ‘My Face’ UK yellow plastic ‘Smash Hits flexi-disc, 1980”
An odd little curio, two tracks apiece from the bands first two Peel sessions jumbled up on this 7″ EP that sells itself on the packaging to the max, with a mish-mash of Banshees eras; early, pre-Polydor recordings with a Kaleidoscope/JuJu era? Siouxsie pic and typeface logo from the ‘Kiss In The Dreamhouse’ era – topped off with light blue marbled vinyl for the disc itself. Both sessions from which the tracks were culled had already been out before on 12″, cassette and CD some years earlier, with the plainer, more interchangeable, generic style sleeve designs and subsequently various outings for Banshees BBC material. A rougher and rawer Banshees sound before Steve Lillywhite’s production touch and ‘space’…
