CABARET VOLTAIRE Vinyl & CDs

Review: With hindsight, Cabaret Voltaire's move towards synth pop and electro on Micro-Phonies feels entirely logical. They would arc further with the development of electronic music into the 90s, and Richard H Kirk was also pushing this sound in some of his solo works. Prior album The Crackdown had already hinted at the direction, and now Cabs were stepping out of the post-punk murk to deliver hooks, floor-friendly rhythm sections and plenty of machine funk. Industrial die hards at the time might have been outraged, but on balance this is still the edgy end of the synth pop spectrum, and even at their poppiest they were never a banal concern. From 'Do Right' and 'James Brown' to 'Sensoria' and 'Spies In The Wires', Micro-Phonies is jam packed full of incredible tracks, and ranks amongst Kirk and Mallinder's finest work.