As we’ve previously reported, Sheffield post-punk/avant-funk unit Cabaret Voltaire have been given the reissue treatment for their excellent third album Red Mecca, on limited edition vinyl and digital download formats. It’s out this week via Mute, remastered by none other than Stefan Betke, aka Pole. To coincide with the re-release Mute have re-uploaded the original video for the album’s ‘Landslide’, which you can watch below; for more on the reissue and to buy it, click here to head across to the Mute website.
Red Mecca was the Cabs’ final album before the departure of founder member Chris Watson, who is now renowned for his long-running career as a sound recordist of the natural world. "Red Mecca was produced at Western Works, Sheffield, and, although rioting at this time hadn’t reached Cabaret Voltaire’s hometown, it was a particularly incendiary time across Britain and the tension was explicit through the news media," reads the text accompanying the album’s re-release. "Explains Richard H Kirk, ‘that insurrection on the streets found its way into the music’ and the album was seen by many as the alternative soundtrack to the unrest on the streets."
It’s the first in a series of Cabs reissues from Mute, all of which look set to be rather excellent: in the autumn, a vinyl and CD box set #8385 (Collected Works 1983 – 1985) collects The Crackdown, Micro-Phonies, Drinking Gasline and The Covenant, The Sword & The Arm of The Lord, alongside bonus materials. And early next year we’re promised #7885 (Electro Punk to Techno Pop 1978 – 1985), which compiles "for the first time, both periods of Cabaret Voltaire together on one release".
