The Return of Cabaret Voltaire (Kinda)

The following news item is from the Shiva Records MySpace page, which also has some sample tracks from the album:

"Those who remember Sheffield United in the top half of the old Division One or Clockwork Orange the first time round will know the name, maybe experienced the sound or even have fallen under the spell of revolutionary post punks Cabaret Voltaire.

Kora! Kora! Kora! is not the new album by Cabaret Voltaire but a cut-up and clubbed-to-pieces collage of key cuts from the platinum-selling debut album by the Maori dub phenomenon called Kora. You'll have to wait a bit for proper new ground-shaking Cabaret Voltaire stuff. Richard H Kirk, the Cabaret Voltaire originator and mainstay has resurrected the name. Hallelujah!

Shiva Records is humbled to be able to exclusively announce that the seminal, electronic, art-rock experience from Sheffield known as Cabaret Voltaire is poised to inflict audio-visual carnage across designated areas of the world and its solar system once again.

There will be no pop records. No comeback rock gigs. No steel city tours. In fact... there will be no pop, just art.

All Disinformation is currently classified. But it appears that the UK population will need to head towards the London and Edinburgh regions next spring to catch the fireworks. Europe will see some bright lights in the fall but you country folks out in the US and Japan may have to wait until 2010 before the fan truly hits the shit.

The first physical sign of the return of the Audio Visual Avatar can be witnessed by all in January 2009 when Shiva Records release the first new work by Cabaret Voltaire since 1993, an incredible re-working of key tracks from the debut album by Kora, Shiva's awesome Platinum- selling, chart topping Kiwis... it's like Bob Marley & The Wailers meets... well, Cabaret Voltaire.

Be scared people, be very scared.

Kora! Kora! Kora! is still quintessential Cabaret Voltaire…. Manipulating, cutting up, pasting, looping and creatively fucking with an original form. Perhaps not as alienated from popular culture now as they were back in the 1970's, CV remain innovators of musical experimentation and masters at the craft of etching something brand new from what exists.

The soulful vocals of Kora have been mined from their lustrous debut album and married by shotgun and evil preacher to a blizzard of industrial electronics, fucked up dub and factory funk. Early Howie B, old school Kraftwerk or an underground Depeche Mode, they still dodge a pigeonhole where they can.

This is the first new work from The Cabs in over a decade and it offers up a refreshing re-approach to the cutting edge retro sounds that glut the commercial radio and TV stations today. Their nod to the past exists through their production style and fondness for the Dada movement. Re-ordering cut up pieces of music into their own order and theme.

The musical collage lives on. Richard H Kirk, Cabaret Voltaire's originator , saw Kora live and seized an opportunity to apply the Cabaret Voltaire effect in amongst the dubby undertones. Present throughout, he re-works the mechanical, almost tribal drum, spacey keys and a sense of the hypnotic that popularized the purveyors of 'dark dance music'. They once commented that they desired to 'annoy as many people as possible'.

I'm not sure that's been achieved. Quite the contrary. But there's definitely a sit up and listen factor to the album and the overused 'it's a bit of grower' really does adhere here. Unraveling those layers takes time. Every new listen giving a different perspective.

Cabaret Voltaire have lined up select shows for 2009 – dates, content, format and locations tbc. It's going to be a bit special, that's guaranteed."