''Mix-Up'' is the debut studio album by English band
Cabaret Voltaire. It was released on 23 October 1979, through record label
Rough Trade.
Content
The album contains a cover of
The Seeds' song "No Escape" from their
1966 eponymous debut album.
Critical reception
Writing in ''
Smash Hits
''Smash Hits'' was a British music magazine aimed at young adults, originally published by EMAP. It ran from 1978 to 2006, and, after initially appearing monthly, was issued fortnightly during most of that time. The name survived as a brand ...
'' in 1979, Red Starr said the album was an "intriguing but only occasionally attractive array of verbal and musical images". Starr went on to say that it sounded like "pointless backroom self indulgence".
Steven Grant echoed Starr's ambivalence in Trouser Press, saying that the album "has an obsessive strength — like Eno in his stranger moments but without his repetitiveness," but that "The music, though fascinating, is rarely coherent."
In a retrospective review, ''
Head Heritage'' described ''Mix-Up'' as "a great snapshot of a brief period in
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...
UK when there was a sudden urge to grapple with a bizarre, homemade, hamfisted white
dub landscape."
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
writer Andy Kellman was less favourable, writing that "Cabaret Voltaire's first two proper studio albums hardly match the greatness of later works like ''
Red Mecca'', ''
2 X 45'' and even ''3 Crepuscule Tracks''", while noting that ''Mix-Up'' "only helped solidify Cabaret Voltaire's status as an integral part of the extended frisson of 1978–1982 post-punk".
Track listing
Personnel
; Cabaret Voltaire
*
Stephen Mallinder
Stephen William Mallinder (born 1 January 1955) is an English artist and musician who was a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, and went on to work as Sassi & Loco, the Ku-Ling Bros., Hey, Rube!, Wrangler, and Creep Show.
Biography
Mallinder ...
– vocals, bass guitar, percussion
*
Chris Watson
John Christian Watson (born Johan Cristian Tanck; 9 April 186718 November 1941) was an Australian politician who served as the third prime minister of Australia from April to August 1904. He held office as the inaugural federal leader of the Au ...
– synthesizers, tapes
*
Richard H. Kirk
Richard Harold Kirk (21 March 1956 – 21 September 2021) was an English composer, musician and producer. He is best known for his work in electronic music, and for co-founding the influential music group Cabaret Voltaire in 1973. As a solo art ...
– guitar, synthesizers, wind instruments
*
Haydn Boyes Weston – drums
; Additional personnel
*
Porky
Porky may refer to:
As a nickname
* Frank Biscan (1920–1959), Major League Baseball pitcher
* Gordon Brown (Canadian football) (born 1927), Canadian Football League retired player
* Porky Chedwick, Pittsburgh radio disk jockey of the 1950s and 1 ...
–
mastering
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1979 debut albums
Cabaret Voltaire (band) albums
Rough Trade Records albums