Customer Reviews

Cabaret Voltaire: Doublevision Presents Cabaret Voltaire

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is going to be a hard DVD to review. Random political images spliced with band shots and various weird locations make it very odd, sometimes disconcerting and as hard to review as it is trying to make out what's the point in the videos. Still the music is very good and after watching it a few times it actually is pretty damn good. Still don't ask me what it is I should be deciphering out of it. The Dadaists are making me feel dizzy!

It was great to finally see this out on durable DVD formatting. I only wish that, given the space and technological abilities afforded by DVDs, that more had been done. As it is, the DVD is more or less an exact repeat of the old VHS, albeit with a menu and TOC screen. As mentioned in an earlier review, it would have been nice to see some of Cabaret Voltaire's other videos too. I guess I felt that the producers of the DVD were being lazy...

According to third-party information, "Double Vision Presents: Cabaret Voltaire" was originally released on VHS back in 1982 ... and this is an interesting historical collection of their early music and visual work, mostly experimental and vaguely stereo, there's even some ZX-81 styled computer graphics and footage of self-flagellating monks and other televised tidbits. "Moscow," with its ambient textures and dream-like imagery is probably the most appealing. However I was really hoping for some extras, like the inclusion of their later, more commercial music videos, such as "Sensoria," which you won't find here.

The last song/video - Moscow - is a cold and wintry musical vision. It is brooding, somber and disturbing. This musical space is seen out the window of a taxiing aircraft at some Moscow airport.

The Ilyusion 62's and Tupolev 154 we pass themselves dissolve in the haze of the failing northern winter light. Mostly we just stare at this diminished light, filtered through an aircraft window.

I am not really sure that the left wing (shown in flight with Aeroflot registration CCCP - Cyrillic for SSSR) belongs to the same aircraft as the right wing we overlook while taxiing. The one view we actually get of the window leads me to believe that we are taxiing in a Vickers Viscount. Did Aeroflot ever operate Viscounts? That's what this video says to me.

And this is just the last in a series of spectacular videos. This cab has only just begun to age, and I would recommend cellaring this, cuz it will only get better with time.