I’ve listened to Cabaret Voltaire since I was a teen – something about their slightly techno/slightly industrial feel really works for me. Their music is at once dark and uplifting. The main protagonists, Mallinder, Watson and Kirk have gone their own way, still making music in their own right, but Cabaret Voltaire continued, with some ambient music, and club disks and odds and ends.
Under the Cabaret Voltaire moniker, Richard Kirk has remixed the album by New Zealand band Kora with very distinctive results.
Kora is a New Zealand roots/reggae act. Four of the five members are the Kora brothers. Their self-titled album was pretty popular in New Zealand and around the world.
The remix album Kora! Kora! Kora! (steamable and available for purchase at the link) is less roots and more techno, with clear elements from the original. To all accounts it’s more popular with Cabaret Voltaire fans than with Kora fans (who probably want that reggae feel, more than is present here).
I love the energy and drive of the pieces, it’s great for rarking up my writing pace, kicking me out of slumber, and at the same time taking me back to the eighties, but keeping me current. Whew.
