Ladies, gents and yet undecided but sensitive ones, greetings, and congratulations on your purchase. You are now the owner (you DID keep that receipt now didn't you?) of the world's first Cabaret Voltaire compact disc. Yeah, I know you knew that, I'm simply pinching myself up into a suitable historico-heroic perspective, just wanna be worthy of the honor of being the one asked to write the blurb (traditionally called liner notes in the vinyl jungle but this ain't vinyl now is it and anyway blurb is an onomatopeic ring to to, like something respectable company will forgive you once, provided you don't make a habit of it, unfortunately I have, o well screw their forgiving I ain't…
It goes on like that for four pages — without ever closing that open parenthesis. Claude Bessey, take a bow. I'm a fine one to talk, you might say. YOU BETTER LISTEN AND LISTEN CLOSE IF YOU VALUE YOUR ASS. From now on I want everyone to just DRINK my words and concentrate on every little thing I am saying, if it don't make sense now it will later. Or later. That's Claude again; not me.
This was my introduction to Cabaret Voltaire, sometime late in the eighties. I was already very late to the party, feeling a bit stupid, because all that stuff Claude brushes off ("Sheffield industrial… cut up theories applied to… technology in the hairy hands of the barbarians which… propaganda…" — all ellipses reproduced as in the original) should have been right up my street.
I got it home from Record Collector in Broomhill, put it on, listened, and read the… blurb. It all made me fucking angry. Result?
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