No story of the Sheffield music scene is complete without mention of Cabaret Voltaire, the post-punk outfit whose approach to electronic music was so feral it felt like you could hear it degrading in real time. The band formed in 1973, a time when one of their formative influences, Roxy Music, were in their Eno-inspired pomp. Fired up on a diet of J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, and Brion Gysin, Cabaret Voltaire borrowed their name from a Zurich nightclub that was a gathering spot for pivotal figures in the Dada movement, and by 1974 settled into a steady lineup of Richard Kirk, Stephen Mallinder, and Chris Watson. Some of their abstract work from that period was gathered together on a three-disc collection, Methodology ‘74/’78, released by Mute in 2002. But their story really starts in 1978, with the band recording out of their own Western Works headquarters, where they adhered to a do-it-yourself ethos that would link them to the bracket of groups loosely banded under the post-punk banner.
The abundance of disused industrial spaces in Sheffield at the end of the 1970s worked in the band’s favor, both as a suitably dystopian backdrop to get inspired by and as a place to find cheap or free spaces to work in. Out of that came Western Works, a place Kirk describes as “Andy Warhol’s Factory on a fifty-pence budget.” Their debut EP, Extended Play, was recorded before they founded their own studio, but the spirit was already fully intact. Represented here by two tracks, notably “Do the Mussolini (Headkick)”, it’s a masterpiece in detachment, forming a sound so hollowed out and distant it feels like all three members of the band are sitting across the room, fixing you with an icy stare. Photos and sleeves from the era perfectly complement the vision—the anti-art record covers, in particular Extended Play and Nag Nag Nag, look like they’ve been fed through a black-and-white Xerox machine countless times, giving the shots of black-clad band members a suitably sub-Velvets air of mystery.
Much of the material on #7885 (Electropunk to Technopop 1978 – 1985) will already be familiar to longstanding fans of the band, its use mostly derived from the way it traces their creative arc over this period. Watson departed in 1981, which may be the reason for the gap in material covered here—it spans ‘78-’81, then picks up again with a clutch of material from ‘83-’85. Strangely, one of their most popular songs from that initial era, the TV evangelist-inspired “Sluggin’ fer Jesus”, doesn’t feature. Still, it’s practically a greatest hits set, most notable for how they treated electronics and vocals in their formative days. Everything is so processed, so tightly wound, it often sounds like someone struggling to get out of restraints. At times it manages to be both big and small—”Nag Nag Nag”, as close as Cabaret Voltaire get to a signature song, is dominated by a vast organ grind, matched to beats so flat they resemble the last exhale of a drum machine about to shuffle out of life.
The cheap sound of the nascent Cabaret Voltaire appears to be born out of necessity as well as desire. This album charts the sound of a band improving, filling out their vision, leaving behind their origins simply because they had a better grasp on what they were doing. “Silent Command” from 1979 marks a huge sonic shift from “Nag Nag Nag”, which was only released four months prior. It draws on reggae, pop, and even whimsical fairground organ, as well as the signal-jamming vocal cut-ups they would explore in greater detail as they progressed. Clearly this was a band fascinated by the bridge between high and low culture, particularly in the desensitizing effect of TV news, which would spew out the topical fare Cabaret Voltaire would often pick up on in their songs, beaming it out to an audience steadily anesthetized to shock. There’s an anger and an emptiness to a song like “Seconds Too Late”, with Mallinder pulling off the familiar trick of throwing his vocal into the background, relegated to a voice howling helplessly from the void.
While never as overtly pop leaning as fellow Sheffield synth devotees the Human League, there is a greater sense of polish to the post-Watson material. Backed by the Some Bizzare label, who had a sizable hit with Soft Cell’s take on “Tainted Love”, Mallinder’s voice is suddenly front and center, and the sound strung somewhere between the Art of Noise, a vintage Arthur Baker production, and an industrial funk workout. The three tracks present from 1983’s The Crackdown all feel like they could have been hits—a feeling only amplified by the later “Sensoria” and “I Want You”, both of which do a better job of marrying older Cabaret Voltaire fascinations (vocal cut-ups, the pileup of information spewing forth into the culture) with something approaching pop structure. Despite notable differences, there’s never a feeling of change being forced—it’s possible to trace a progression from “Nag Nag Nag” to “Kino”, with the latter as wilfully stiff and hard-hitting as the former, just with different tools and fascinations to draw on in the execution.
With the post ‘83 material there’s a sense of Cabaret Voltaire getting swept along on the tide turn toward industrial-tinged electronic sounds in the UK mainstream, although that sense of steely remove, such a vital part of the band’s sound across eras, always keeps them from the wider public’s gaze. It never feels like they were cognizant of anyone watching from the outside; despite the occasional sound locking the music into a particular era, much of this music feels isolated from anything else going on, with Kirk and Mallinder ultimately drawing strength from the separation they bring to their work. Anyone with the two Original Sound of Sheffield compilations may struggle to see why this material is surfacing again, even if the versions here are sometimes notably shorter in length. But as an entry point into two of the distinct faces of Cabaret Voltaire, #7885 is an undeniably valuable document, and one that’s as much about the importance of growth and change as it is about the birth of a sound.
