Cabaret Voltaire

Cabaret Voltaire, born in Sheffield in 1973 around Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson, is one of the founding bands of British industrial music. Initially nourished by post-punk, sound collages and Dada-derived experimentation, the trio forged an abrasive electronic language that would leave a lasting mark on industrial, EBM and experimental techno. The group reached a first turning point with the albums Mix-Up and Red Mecca, two essential milestones for understanding their radical aesthetic, before broadening their scope in the 1980s with The Crackdown and Micro-Phonies, propelled by the track "Sensoria." After the departures of Chris Watson and later Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk continued the project alone and steered Cabaret Voltaire toward a more hypnotic techno, until his notable return in the 2020s with Shadow of Fear, Dekadrone and BN9Drone. Always positioned between experimentation and dance music, Cabaret Voltaire remains a major reference for several generations of electronic artists.