You can hear a Burroughsian influence - the flat, matter-of-fact depiction of extreme and grotesque acts of sex and violence - in the spoken-word voice-overs that accompany some early Cabaret Voltaire pieces, such as the fetid imagery of "Bed Time Stories": "With dogs that are trained to sniff out corpses/Eat my remains but leave my feet/I'll hold a séance with Moroccan rapists/Masturbating end over end".
Cabaret Voltaire - Bed Time Stories 1974
Creaky and homespun, the Cabs' early stabs at musique concrète, such as "Dream Sequence Number Two Ethel's Voice", have an alien-yet-quaint quality, while more ferocious tracks like "Henderson Reversed Piece Two", all rattling, synthetic percussion and soiled sheets of sound, recall avant-classical electronic composers such as Morton Subotnick.
Cabaret Voltaire - Henderson Reversed Piece Two 1974
