Cabaret Voltaire, "Nag Nag Nag" (Mute)
The great English label Mute is doing a Nobel-worthy job excavating the early recordings of Cabaret Voltaire, one of the world's most interesting experimental electronic groups of the '70s and '80s (and they're back in business, as producer Richard H. Kirk is currently working on a new Cab Volt album due out in 2020). Part of this campaign includes the re-release of Methodology: '74-'78. Attic Tapes (released December 6 on vinyl for the first time on seven pieces of clear wax, ltd. ed. of 500).
In a review for XLR8R magazine, I wrote about the anthology upon its release in 2003 as a triple CD: "Methodology unveils Cabaret Voltaire’s earliest experiments with electronics. Through radical manipulations of voices and instruments, Sheffield, England’s Chris Watson, Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder restlessly developed the phonemes of a sonic vocabulary that would coalesce into the viral language heard on their bleak, industrial-electrofunk classics Red Mecca and 2 X 45. But before those refinements came and before they embraced rhythm and Burroughsian paranoia, Cabaret Voltaire diabolically schemed in the studio like pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk, forging bizarrely bleeping abstractions akin to Gil Mellé’s Andromeda Strain soundtrack and elaborating on the timbral mutations pioneered by Tod Dockstader and Morton Subotnick."
The version of "Nag Nag Nag" that appears on Methodology is slightly rawer and longer than the one on the 1980 Rough Trade comp Wanna Buy a Bridge? (where I first had my mind blown by it) and the 1979 7-inch. Compared to the esoteric abstractions that dominate Methodology, "Nag Nag Nag" sounds like a veritable pop song. Of course, it was way too abrasive for chart status, but the title aptly sums up how insanely catchy those words sound as Mallinder repeatedly sneers them.
The rhythm's a relentless tumble of drum-machine nerviness while the synth and bass generate waves of in-the-red fuzz and static, making the track seem as if it's emanating from a particularly sinister factory in northern England. Pro DJ tip: "Nag Nag Nag" segues well into and out of the Normal's "Warm Leatherette."
