Red Mecca - Album

Cabaret Voltaire Was An Experimental Music Band Which Formed In Sheffield UK In 1973. They Originally Consisted Of Stephen Mallinder Vocals Bass Richard H. Kirk 1956 - 2021 Guitar Keyboards Sound Manipulation And Chris Watson Sound Manipulation Tapes Keyboards . Over The Years Cabaret Voltaire's Music Continued To Evolve From Its Experimental Velvet Underground-Inspired Beginnings In The Mid 1970s To The Pop-Oriented Dance Music In The Early 1990s. Each Consequent Phase Saw The Band Pushing The Boundaries Of Its Time Proving Highly Influential For The Many Electronic Artists That Followed In Its Footsteps. The Band Pioneered Many Techniques That For Years Fuelled Industrial Music And Consequent Electronic Genres Such As House And Techno. Among These Were The Cut-Up Techniques Of William S. Burroughs And Brion Gysin Using Snippets Of Spoken Word Pre-Dating Sampling And Incorporating Experimental Video In Their Live Shows Pre-Dating VJ-Ing . The Band First Came To Public Attention In The Late 1970s During The Era Of Post-Punk And Industrial Music With Their Debut Album Mix-Up 1979 And The EP Nag Nag Nag With Its Seminal Noise-Punk Title Track. They Honed Their Style With The Follow-Up Albums Voice Of America 1980 And Red Mecca 1981 . The Early 1980s Was An Important Transitional Phase For The Band As It Shifted Towards More Structured Dance Music. In Late 1981 Halfway During The Recording Of The Album 2X45 Released In 1982 Watson Left The Group Which Continued As A Duo Until Their De Facto Disbandment In 1994. In 1983 With The Album The Crackdown The Cabs Switched Labels From Rough Trade To Virgin And Started Using Increasingly More Digital Technology. A Prime Example Is Their Industrial Funk Dance Floor Hit Sensoria From 1984 Which Got Picked Up By MTV And Saw The Band Starting To Infiltrate The Mainstream. In The Late 1980s And Early 1990s Cabaret Voltaire Continued Their Trajectory Towards Dance Pop Incorporating House And Techno Styles With Many Tracks Like Easy Life And Later Colours Fusing Hooks With All The Excitement Of The Then Burgeoning Rave Scene In The UK. By 1994 On The Duo's Last Album The Conversation Mallinder's Input Had Become Insignificant And He Left The Band After Its Release. From Then On Until His Death In 2021 Kirk Had Sole Legal Ownership Of The Cabaret Voltaire Name. His View Was That As Watson And Mallinder Had Both Left The Band He Was Left To Carry It On. He Used The Name For Remix Projects Of Kora And The Tivoli In 2010 And For The Albums Shadow Of Fear 2020 Dekadrone 2021 And BN9Drone 2021 . Kirk Had A Staggering Amount Of Solo Outings Under Various Names. His Sweet Exorcist Collaboration With DJ Parrot Opened The Doors For Warp Records In Their "bleep" Days Was The Harbinger For The Sonic Experimentation Of Aphex Twin Autechre The Black Dog And More. Other Solo Projects Of Kirk Were Sandoz Biochemical Dread Bit Crackle Blacworld Chemical Agent Cold Warrior And Dark Magus To Name But A Few. Mallinder Has Since Been Involved In Various Projects Such As Ku-Ling Bros. Sassi & Loco Hey Rube! And Most Recently Wrangler. As Well As Working On His Own Aural Experiments Watson Now Works As A Critically-Acclaimed Sound Recordist Developing Some Innovative Techniques For Natural History Radio And TV Such As The BBC's Galapagos Series In 2006. read less