Cabaret Voltaire were an English music group formed in Sheffield in 1973 and initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk, and Chris Watson.
[2] The band's early work consisted of experimentation with DIY electronics and tape recorders, as well as Dada-influenced performance art, helping to pioneer industrial music in the mid-1970s.
[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 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.
[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.
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.
[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 Jericho" and "Jazz the Glass".
Introduced by New Order to the American dance music producer John Robie, Cabaret Voltaire enlisted him to remix "Yashar", a track from their 1982 album 2x45.
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.
[15] Prior to 1988, each member of Cabaret Voltaire had released several solo recordings under their own names, and Kirk had worked with Peter Hope of The Box on an album and single.
The introduction led to a cross-Atlantic collaboration, with the members of Cabaret Voltaire spending a month in Chicago to produce material for their 1990 album Groovy, Laidback and Nasty.
[17] Released from the label, Kirk began a series of projects between 1990 and 1992, including Sweet Exorcist with Richard Barratt,[18] The Technocrats with Ralf Dörper, XON with Robert Gordon, Citrus with Steve Cobby, and solo as Sandoz.
[17] In 1995, Mallinder moved to Perth, Australia, and effectively left Cabaret Voltaire in order to step away from the commercial and financial pressures of what had become of his music career.
Meanwhile, Kirk remained in England and continued in the vein of where Cabaret Voltaire left off through the remainder of the '90s and into the 2000s with more releases under his own name, as Sandoz, and as a new solo project, Electronic Eye.
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 was still considering resurrecting the Cabaret name, but this time he planned to "Get some young people involved".
In early August 2016, Cabaret Voltaire performed an hour long set of otherwise unreleased material at the Dekmantel festival in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
[28] 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".
[29] 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.