Cabaret Voltaire announce first new album in over 20 years – listen to the first track from ‘Shadow Of Fear’
Cabaret Voltaire have announced the first new album release in over 20 years. “Shadow Of Fear” is set for release on Mute on 20 November 2020.
“Shadow Of Fear” is Cabaret Voltaire’s first release with Richard H Kirk as the sole member of the band.
“The album was finished just as all the weirdness was starting to kick in,” Kirk says. “Shadow Of Fear feels like a strangely appropriate title. The current situation didn’t have much of an influence on what I was doing – all the vocal content was already in place before the panic set in – but maybe due to my nature of being a bit paranoid there are hints in there about stuff going a bit weird and capturing the current state of affairs.”
The genesis of the new album was the 2014 Berlin Atonal festival where Kirk played the first show on his own as Cabaret Voltaire. Kirk has since gone on to perform at festivals and concerts across Europe, shaping the sound of Cabaret Voltaire’s future. “I started developing tracks specifically for live performance,” he says. “Stuff that was quite stripped back and crude. Every time I would visit a new place to perform, I would write something fresh.”
Recorded at the latest location of Western Works, the studio used throughout Cabaret Voltaire’s history, Kirk toyed with upgrading his old set up to digital but after a computer failure he decided to retain his original equipment. “Making this album reminded me a bit of the old days with Cabaret Voltaire because there wasn’t that much equipment, so you really had to use your imagination.”
Originally active between 1973-1994 – Cabaret Voltaire featured Chris Watson until 1981 and Stephen Mallinder until 1994 – the group were inactive for 20 years until – with Kirk as the sole remaining member – the 2014 performance at Berlin’s Atonal festival.
You can already listen to “Vasto”, the first taste of what to expect from the new album right below.
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