* 2022 Re-press on limited edition white colour vinyl * Remastered (from original tapes) reissue of The Cabs' 7th studio album, originally released in 1985. ‘The Crackdown’ marks the point, after Chris Watson’s departure, when the Sheffield legends bridged earlier experimental urges with a funkier steez owing heavily to Afro-American dance music. As these things (still) go, the album would really strike a nerve with US industrial audiences, effectively reframing and selling back their own funk, but dressed up to their anglophilic tastes. Anyway, stranger things have happened, and ‘The Crackdown’ stands as a landmark ‘80s record, here in its 2013 master and expanded with four tracks taken from the contemporaneous VHS, ‘Doublevision Presents: Cabaret Voltaire’.
Cabaret Voltaire, alongside Human League, Throbbing Gristle, Fad Gadget and The Normal, were at the forefront of the UK electronic movement of the late 70s. Way ahead of their time, Cabaret Voltaire’s blend of dance music, techno, dub, house and experimental made them, without a doubt, one of the most influential acts of the last 35 years.