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Rough Trade

CABARET VOLTAIRE - Red Mecca

Original, sealed copies of the US Rough Trade pressing from 1981. Minor storage/edgeware.  "Red Mecca was produced at Western Works, Sheffield, and, although rioting at this time hadn't reached Cabaret Voltaire's hometown, it was a particularly incendiary time across Britain and the tension was explicit through the news media. Explains Kirk, "that insurrection on the streets found its way into the music" and the album was seen by many as the alternative soundtrack to the unrest on the streets.

With Middle Eastern musical influences and a title that reflected the beginnings of long running tensions stemming from the Islamic Revolution and the resulting Afghanistan conflict and rise in fundamentalism, the buried vocals and large instrumental passages are a wonderful bridge between the punkier ethos of earlier releases, Mix Up and The Voice Of America and the more dance minded 2X45 and Yashar EPs that followed.

Inspirations on the album were varied, but these tensions were particularly highlighted by 'A Touch Of Evil', which bookends the album and was itself was inspired by the Orson Welles film Touch of Evil (1958) and the soundtrack by Henry Mancini. For 'Spread The Virus', the inspiration came from William Burroughs and northern soul while CB became another, initially unlikely sounding, inspiration. CB radio was important at the time as an alternative method of communication. Says Richard, "we were thinking about doing a pirate radio at that time, which never happened, but buried in the sounds before 'Red Mask', are clips of CB radio transmissions."

Red Mecca is an intriguing snapshot of a band continuing to experiment and evolve, different enough to anything of theirs before or after, and very different to whatever the rest of the planet was producing at the time (or since)." - Mute.

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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

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