Cabaret Voltaire (band)

By the early 1970s, Chris Watson of Sheffield, England, began experimenting with electronic devices to make "music without musical instruments." Inspired by the tech geekery of Brian Eno of Roxy Music, and helped along by his work as a telephone engineer, Watson's experimentation with tape loops evolved to include custom-built kit oscillators obtained by mail order by the time he met fellow Sheffield local and Eno devotee, Richard Kirk. Kirk and Watson began exploring the intersection of technology and music, producing tapes loops to generate sound collages and unusual sound structures. Kirk began to add traditional instrumentation including clarinet and guitar. In late 1973, they brought on Kirk's friend Stephen Mallinder to provide vocals and bass guitar.[4] Some of these early experiments were first documented on the Industrial Records cassette 1974-1976 (1980), then later on the triple album CD set Methodology '74/'78: The Attic Tapes (Mute 2002).

The band eventually turned to live performance, often sharing the bill with Joy Division,[5] though much of their earliest public performance tended more towards being unconventional and provocative stunts rather than conventional shows. The trio would deploy to various parts of Sheffield with their portable tape recorders and play their experimental compositions in places as diverse as public toilets and on the streets from loudspeakers on the top of a friend's van. This raucous and punkish attitude followed the band onstage to great effect; their first live concert in May 1975 ended in a fight between the band and the audience that sent Mallinder to the hospital.[4] In another incident, Mallinder was hospitalised with a chipped backbone after objects were thrown at the band. However, the arrival of punk rock brought a more accepting audience for their industrial, electronic sound and they were championed by Sheffield punk fanzine Gunrubber edited by Paul Bower of local band 2.3.[6]

In 1977, Watson financed the establishment of the band's own recording studio on the second floor of a building called the Western Works on Portobello Street in Sheffield. The "Western Works" studio served as the band's studio for many years as well as providing a social gathering spot for the local Sheffield scene. Western Works produced some of the earliest recordings of pioneering local bands including Clock DVA, The Human League, and New Order.[4]

In 1978, Cabaret Voltaire signed to Rough Trade Records. Manchester-based Factory Records had offered to sign the band, and Throbbing Gristle was also interested in signing the band to Industrial Records, but it was with an offer of a four-track Revox tape machine (in lieu of an advance) that Rough Trade secured the deal.[4] With Rough Trade they released several acclaimed musically experimental singles and EPs, including Extended Play and "Nag Nag Nag", and albums such as "Three Mantras" and The Voice of America in 1980, and Red Mecca in 1981.

In the 27 June 1978 edition of NME, Andy Gill said: "I firmly believe Cabaret Voltaire will turn out to be one of the most important new bands to achieve wider recognition this year. Wait and see."[7] Subsequently, "Nag Nag Nag" sold ten thousand copies, despite poor reviews, and reached as far afield as France and Belgium, while the debut album Mix-Up reached number 12 on the UK Indie charts. Their success continued with The Voice of America and Red Mecca, reaching number three and number one on the UK Indie charts respectively.[4]

Watson left the band in 1981 to work for Tyne Tees Television and went on to found The Hafler Trio with Andrew M. McKenzie before becoming a BBC sound engineer and then a soloist. On 25 June 1981, John Peel broadcast a session on the BBC, recorded previously by the band,[8] which included four songs: Black Mask, Greensborough, Walls of Jerico and Jazz the Glass.[9]

During this time, Cabaret Voltaire toured Europe, Japan, and the United States without major record label support, releasing Hai!, a live album recorded in Japan, in 1982.

In late 1982, Cabaret Voltaire decided consciously to turn in a more commercial direction. The group enlisted American dance music producer John Robie to remix "Yashar", a track from their 1982 album 2x45. The 12-inch single was released by Factory Records in May 1983, and received extensive play in dance clubs. Also in 1983, Stevo Pearce signed the duo to his Some Bizzare label and leveraged a licensing deal with Virgin. The £50,000 advance from Some Bizzare allowed Kirk and Mallinder to significantly improve their operation at Western Works, but came with the stipulation of having to record their next LP in London and making certain production changes to their music.[4] In August 1983, the album The Crackdown was released on Some Bizzare / Virgin Records and reached number 31 in the UK Albums Chart[10] – over 60 places higher than their previous (and then only) chart placing. In 1984, the singles "Sensoria" and "James Brown" from the album Micro-Phonies (also on Virgin) charted on the UK Indie Chart, as well as getting play in the underground dance scene.

In 1987, the band released Code, on several tracks of which Bill Nelson played guitar. This was followed by the house-influenced Groovy, Laidback & Nasty in 1990. A series of completely instrumental works under the Cabaret Voltaire name was released on Instinct Records in 1993 and 1994. The last Cabaret Voltaire release to feature Mallinder on vocals was the Body and Soul album in 1991.

Since the mid-late 1980s, Kirk began a solo career under several names, including Electronic Eye and Sandoz, while Mallinder relocated to Perth, Australia and records with a collaborator under the name Sassi & Loco and, more recently, in another collaborative effort the Kuling-Bros. Mallinder also helps run his own Offworld Sounds label and contributed to synthesizer and programming on Shaun Ryder's solo album Amateur Night at the Big Top.

In 1996, Mallinder reported to Inpress magazine's Andrez Bergen that "I do think the manipulation of sound in our early days – the physical act of cutting up tapes, creating tape loops and all that – has a strong reference to Burroughs and Gysin; in terms of the Dada thing, there's a similarity between the Dadaists' reaction to the bourgeoisie and the war and our own position – we felt alienated from popular culture ourselves. I think those kinds of attitudes become embedded within you, but I'm not sure how it relates now..."[11]

Hopes of a Cabaret Voltaire reunion were raised when Kirk dropped hints in the late 1990s, the most significant being in the notes of a reissue of Radiation, but this never happened. In a special 'Depeche Mode/History of Electro-pop' edition of Q magazine, Kirk suggested he is still considering resurrecting the Cabaret name, but this time he plans to "Get some young people involved".[12]

In 2001, Watson appeared in the documentary film Made in Sheffield, where he discussed the early years of Cabaret Voltaire. Since that time, Kirk has resurrected the Cabaret Voltaire name and has released new albums with New Zealand band Kora called Kora! Kora! Kora! and Sheffield band, The Tivoli called National Service Rewind. The new material was recorded at Western Works studios.

The experimental 'Sensoria Festival of Film and Music' is named after the Cabaret Voltaire song, and has become an annual event held in Sheffield since 2008.[13]

In July 2014, Berlin Atonal reported that Cabaret Voltaire were to perform at the festival.[14] The performance – the first in twenty years – saw a set list of all new material performed by a line-up "consisting solely of machines, multi-screen projections and Richard H. Kirk", the lone remaining member of the 'group'.

In early August 2016, Cabaret Voltaire performed an hour long set of otherwise unreleased material at the Dekmantel festival in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

In August 2020, Cabaret Voltaire announced their new studio album Shadow of Fear. Backed by the first single "Vasto," the album will be released on 20 November 2020. This is the first recording with Richard H. Kirk as the group’s sole member.[15]

New Order lead singer and guitarist, Bernard Sumner, said that Cabaret Voltaire influenced his songwriting, having helped him understand that one "could make music without guitars".[16] In Alan Cross's 2012 biography of Skinny Puppy, Cabaret Voltaire's "industrial-grade thumping and noise terrorism" was cited as an influence on the band.[17] Others who have cited Cabaret Voltaire as an influence include Horrid Red,[18] Fluke[19] and Front Line Assembly.[20] As well as helping pioneer industrial music in the 1970s,[2] Cabaret Voltaire have been considered influential on the industrial techno movement of the 1990s.[21][22]

David J of Bauhaus named Cabaret Voltaire as one of the "few bands on the [post-punk] scene at the time to whom we related".[23]

• Richard H. Kirk – guitars, keyboards, clarinet, saxophone, tapes, sampling, drum machines, sequencer programming (1973–1994, 2014–present)
• Stephen Mallinder – vocals, bass, keyboards (1973–1994)
• Chris Watson – keyboards, tapes (1973– October 1981)

• Acid Horse featuring Al Jourgensen, Chris Connelly and Bill Rieflin with Mallinder and Kirk.
• Hafler Trio featuring Watson.
• Sandoz featuring Kirk.
• Sweet Exorcist featuring DJ Parrot and Kirk.
• The Pressure Company, a one-off collaboration for Solidarity featuring Eric Random.
• Xon featuring Kirk.

• Bands and musicians from Yorkshire and North East England
• Cut-up technique

• Neal, Charles, ed. (1987). Tape Delay: Confessions from the Eighties Underground. SAF Publishing Ltd. pp. 93–103. ISBN 978-0-946719-02-0 – via the Internet Archive.
• "Cabaret Voltaire". Music Technology. Vol. 2 no. 2. December 1987. p. 67. ISSN 0957-6606. OCLC 24835173.
• Gimarc, George (2005). Punk Diary: The Ultimate Trainspotter's Guide to Underground Rock: 1970 - 1982. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. ISBN 0-87930-848-6.