Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

Genre: Synth

  • Cabaret Voltaire

    Cabaret Voltaire

    Just outside the city limits of Sheffield, Forge is a relatively new music venue. It is reached by crossing the Tinsley Canal, ducking under a railway arch, passing still functioning industries, the twinkling lights of the city in the distance until you reach the converted Victorian steel forge – it’s an almost too perfect setting for Cabaret Voltaire.

    Over time, the sonic ripples that three mischievous teenagers created by larking around with tape recorders and primitive electronics in a Sheffield attic are still only just becoming clear. They were inventing the future of music. They were also researching our future and critiquing it. They were doing this in 1973(!) before Kraftwerk had ditched the woodwind and released ‘Autobahn’.

    It’s fair to say this is one of the more unlikely musical reunions in recent years. Of the original attic trio Chris Watson left in 1981 to work in TV – most notably as a highly respected sound recordist for wildlife documentaries. Although he swapped a life in electronic pop music for working with David Attenborough he never forgot his roots and continued to release field recordings, sometimes bent into uncanny musical shapes like ‘El Tren Fantasma’ and the recent ‘Oxmardyke’ (highly recommended both).  Stephen Mallinder (Mal) went on to have a flourishing solo career, teaming up the likes of John Grant and Jane Horrocks. Richard H.Kirk is no longer with us of course, although he claimed the Cabs name for a brace of new recordings and played sporadic live shows in his final years – albeit with a militant ‘no nostalgia’ stance and playing only sets of his own, ferocious new material. It is fair to say, it would be highly unlikely he’d be up strapping on a guitar and playing ‘Nag Nag Nag’. 

    So it’s a surprise and a delight that Chris and Mal have reunited as Cabaret Voltaire for a straightforward celebration — a chance to square the circle of fire, have some fun, and craft a new performance to satisfy the surge of interest that has grown exponentially during their absence. There is no new LP to promote. This is a retrospective rather than a reformation. There’s only a handful of live dates (suffice to say this isn’t a Gallagher Bros style cash grab) but those few dates sold out instantly and the excitement in the air is palpable. Dear reader I am thrilled to bits – I have been obsessed with the Cabs since 1990 when I first saw a feature, including some clips of ‘Nag Nag Nag’ and ‘Yahar’ on Snub TV where they were promoting ‘Groovy Laidback & Nasty’ (a collaboration with Chicago House legend Marshall Jefferson) and tried to fathom how they joined all those dots. Formative stuff. 

    It’s worth remembering that, apart from Kirk’s sporadic solo shows the last time there was a ‘tour’ was in 1992. I had a ticket for a gig in Liverpool that was cancelled as were several other dates due to selective appeal. The band were floundering somewhat – making decent but under-the-radar electronica records. There was a nag-nag-nagging sense they were playing catch up rather than blazing the trails for others to follow. 

    33 years late….Bass bin rattling thumps herald ‘Theme From Earthshaker’ and four musicians file on stage to a massive roaring welcome. Watson is presiding studiously over a bank of modular synths conjuring all sorts of spectral waveforms. Mal is flitting between a series of mics so he can do straight vocals, vocoder and terrifying Dalek voices that make those early CV records so unsettling and downright alien – and occasionally playing an odd little vintage bass guitar as only he can. They’re joined by Eric Random – a musician deeply embedded in the DNA of post-punk Manchester and Sheffield since the 1970s. He played on several CV records including the seminal ‘2×45’ and his scything guitars are a revelation tonight – he’s perhaps the 4th Cab. On electronic percussion should Mal’s long-time collaborator (as well as John Foxx and many others) Benge – but he’s got a sick note and been replaced at last minute by Oliver (from the group Moonlandingz) who does a remarkable job (apparently he was planning to be in the audience and now has the dream ticket thwacking out the beats instead).

    So how do you go about representing the long and complex career of CV in around 80 minutes?. Their early material could be abrasive and murky, sometimes disturbing. They often changed direction – sometimes alienating fans along the way who perhaps didn’t understand that CV wanted to keep progressing, keep exploring new sounds, new rhythms and new ways to communicate. They wanted to make people dance too. They wanted to make Pop records, albeit in their own roguish way and with the same geopolitical and social themes.

    The opener is an unexpected choice (’24/24′ from ‘The Crackdown’) recoded after Chris had gone to Tyne Tees Television. As it turns out the set draws heavily on that album and ‘Micro-Phonies’ when they were signed to Virgin Records and becoming more of an electro pop band, albeit informed by the same impulses of their less commercially minded work. It’s clear that they have spent a lot of time working out the set, recreating sounds and reimagining songs to the point that it’s like we’re hearing what they would have done if they’d had access to more advanced gear at the time. Songs like ‘Animation’ and ‘Just Fascination’ suddenly sound more like the classic synth pop hits that could have been (the fact that Phil Oakey of the Human League is stood a few feet away from me nodding in appreciation only underlines that one). Perhaps the most striking upgrade comes with ‘The Set Up’. On the original Rough Trade single from 1978 it’s a brooding, lo-fi Velvet Underground whine with an unsettling and relentless Bontempi beat. 2025 Cabaret Voltaire turn this into a monstrous technoid cyber-garage drone of interweaving buzzsaw guitars and thundering rhythms. It’s utterly astonishing.

    The sound in the venue is immaculate. Loud, full of energy and vivid with detail. Everything needed to be right tonight because this might never happen again. The lighting and presentation is also perfect – CV were always ahead of the game in using video art and projections and tonight their archive of mesmerising visuals is put to good use.

    The next surprise is something new – a piece called ‘Tinsley Viaduct’ that will form part of Chris Watson’s next project ‘Inside the Circle of Fire’ based on field recordings made in this very city. Watson seems to be relishing the opportunity to engage with the music made after he left the group and rattling the venue walls with his synths. In a recent interview in The Wire he makes clear that there was no bad feeling, he remained a fan- Mal says the music was always informed by his DNA and so in some ways, Watson never left.

    It would have been nice to hear them tackle more more of their earlier material – we get a stunning rendition of ‘Landslide’ from Red Mecca for instance but – that said, it is also an utter delight to hear them play ‘Easy Life’ – a key track from a somewhat underrated period when the Cabs were collaborating with the same Chicago and Detroit Techno pioneers that they indirectly influenced. ‘Yashar’ also gets an airing – in a sort of hybrid between the band version on ‘2×45’ and the US electro remixes – the video footage of some very cool 80s Sheffield dancers and Richard and Mal running around the derelict Sheffield Victoria Station is the perfect visual setting and the club sound system is firing on all cylinders to prove that this is indeed music for the limbs as much as the mind. 

    They close with two songs, what else, ‘Nag Nag Nag’  – followed by ‘Sensoria’. The former is a an absolute monster – an electronic music masterwork up there with The Normal ‘Warm Leatherette’ or Soft Cell’s ‘Memorabilia’ (played by the DJ afterwards as a nice tribute to a recently departed Dave Ball) and given that supercharged garage rock electroid boost that thrilled us earlier in the set. ‘Sensoria’ is looser and more stretched out – and closes the set in tribute to the Sheffield arts and culture festival that has tipped the hat to CV and promoted the show tonight. (By the way – there is also a very progressive club and music venue tucked away off the main shopping centre in Sheffield called ‘Gut Level’ after a CV tune – another nice nod from the city and another very meaningful legacy – the Cabs are perhaps to Sheffield what the Hacienda was to Manchester)

    CV have a few more dates on this tour and there is already a show at the Roundhouse in London booked 2026. This could be a one-off in Sheffield, and so tonight the fans gathered here from all over the world (I had some lovely chats with a few of ’em) and got a chance to experience Cabaret Voltaire, say thank you and be reminded of the ideas and possibilities and provocations they kicked off. This wasn’t a nostalgic event, it was an exercise in plugging CV back into the national grid just for a moment and letting them blow a few fuses again.

  • Factory Floor

    Factory Floor

    Dreams can come true. Many years ago Factory Floor, never a band shy about revealing their influences, wrote a letter addressed to ‘Stephen Morris – Macclesfield’ with some demo CDs enclosed. Luckily, like when kids write to Santa c/o Lapland it reached the right letterbox and the stereo of the wry New Order drummer who recognised an energy and propulsive drive familiar to his own early synth experiments. Morris promptly offered to remix them, and FF would soon be sharing a stage with Steve, Gillian and Bernard.
    Nik Void would have similar success hooking up with the enigmatic Chris & Cosey of Throbbing Gristle and sultry electro-pop fame resulting in a stellar series of collaborations.

    There was a major buzz around FF back in 2010 and I saw a few live performances most memorably a near upstaging support slot with Wire (courtesy of The Quietus). They never failed to mesmerise live – but perhaps on record didn’t always ignite the imagination. In my opinion they leaned a little too much into the New York Post-Punk Party groove rather than the ultra sleek electro of their early singles. More DFA than DAF you might say.


    Cue auspicious solo careers for both Nik (working with Klara Lewis and the late Peter Rehberg) and Gabe Guernsey (solo works and remixes for Depeche Mode etc) but 7 years on the draw of dusting down the modular synths and the drum set was too much and here they are now…a mere 45 mins later than advertised (we’re on ‘White Hotel time’ tonight).

    They may have been in absentia but there is a room full of minimal groovers delighted to welcome them back. They are sans original third ‘Floor’ Dom Butler but with percussionist and knob twiddler Joe Ward adding some extra beats and pieces there’s plenty of action on stage. From the first synth throb, heads are nodding and feet are moving as much as they can in the cramped space and it strikes me that there’s no better place for this comeback than on yer actual industrial floor in a suitably grimy setting. This music needs volume and is perfect for the ‘orrible Hotel’s secret weapon – their monumental sound system.

    On a superficial level, FF’s music is inordinately simple. Two note basslines, treated vocals, acid squelches, metronomic drumming and the odd cowbell. It’s quite telling though how many bits of synthesis and wiring are required to get that seemingly basic sound – with FF it’s all in the tiny details – tweaks, bursts of static and ghost sounds – and when Gabe becomes the human beatbox and it all clicks in nobody can touch ’em. Highlight of the set is new single ‘Between You’ – as close as FF have to a shiny pop song with a nod toward Underworld at their most sprightly.

    FF are on just shy of an hour which flashes by in the beat of a strobe light. Notably the crowd are a mix of hip young dancers and a few veterans of New Order & The Fall gigs – hip Salford clubland meets The Vikings – and tellingly there’s a little singalong at the end as the DJ cues up Echo & The Bunnymen which reminds me of the crossover appeal of Factory Floor. For all their experimental edge and obfuscated vocals they’re a great electro pop band at heart. They recall the great lost Factory band Section 25, and perhaps Gerald Simpson’s early acid experiments.

    None more Manchester in fact.