The greatest musical act in world history to take its name from a Swiss Dada touchstone, Cabaret Voltaire announced earlier this week that it intends to play its first U.K. show in 25 years when it takes the stage at Derbyshire’s The Devil’s Arse Cave on April 29.
In an odd bit of phrasing, a poster released by the band asserts that the show is “billed as a performance consisting solely of machines, multi-screen projections and Richard H. Kirk,” and if you’re wondering, it seems that the surmise that Stephen Mallinder will not be involved is correct. (By the way, they used the exact same odd phrasing in press releases for their 2015 shows.)
In the 1970s Cabaret Voltaire was one of the pre-eminent pioneers of industrial and electronic music, generating albums as sinister and funky as Red Mecca and The Crackdown; it’s safe to say that anything under the banner of Cabaret Voltaire is worthy of interest by definition.
It’s true that Cabaret Voltaire played gigs all over continental Europe in 2015 and 2016, but Kirk and his doodads neglected to hit the British Isles. The useful website setlist.fm includes information on a 2011 show in the Horse Hospital in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London, but that was actually a screening of the 1982 movie Johnny Yesno, a movie for which Cabaret Voltaire did the soundtrack. The last Cabaret Voltaire show in the U.K. before that was at the Gardner Center in Brighton on November 29, 1992.
The more interesting news is that Kirk has recently made a commitment, in an interview with FACT, to keep upcoming CV shows devoid of old material:
It’s totally new, I don’t play anything from the past. I think being 60, it feels more dignified than a band full of old guys wobbling about on a stage. I’ve been a big fan of Miles Davis for many years and he would never play anything from the past and the only time he ever did that was before he died. I just feel like, what’s the point? It’s not going anywhere, who wants to be playing stuff that you did 30 years ago and constantly repeating yourself? I always make it really clear that if you think you’re going to come and hear the greatest hits then don’t come because you’re not. What you might get is the same spirit.
If you’re in Derbyshire in late April, I recommend stopping by. Still wish Mallinder were involved, tho…...
John Peel Archive on Cabaret Voltaire:
via the Quietus
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘TV Wipeout’: Cabaret Voltaire’s rigorously post-punk 1984 video compilation resurfaces