MUSIC FROM SPACE: Cabaret Voltaire - SENSORIA

Journey with us now, all the way back to 1984, for Sensoria, a mind-warping music video from the pioneering industrial music group Cabaret Voltaire.

Sure, there's no denying that aspects of this video have become rather painfully/hysterically dated over the last 25 years(!), with the stop-motion robot dancing and all that. But from that stunning opening camera move (how the hell did they do that?), to the crazy preacher man leading that creepy little girl around, to the group of ladies doing what looks like some sort of worship dance in the long shadow of the nuclear power plant, somehow all of the cheap symbolism and gimmicks in Sensoria end up being a lot more powerful than they should be. There was a real crackle of apocalypse in the air back in 1984, like the whole damn works could just fall apart on us any day. You can hear that crackle in this video, it's not drowned out by all the retro camp.

I grew up on the TV edit of this thing, which was probably about 4 minutes shorter and somehow managed to get the point across without quite so many shots of the lead singer's jacket. It's right on the border between art and an old Mike Meyers Sprockets bit, but it could just be that this dark, exquisitely pretentious old curio is exactly what you need on a Sunday morning.




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