Cabaret Voltaire – Drinking Gasoline EP

I went through a massive rabbit hole of listening to all of Cabaret Voltaire’s stuff in recent years, as well as a good chunk of Richard H Kirk’s solo stuff too, but there’s so much of that – I’m still working my way through. I haven't climbed even half-way up the Richard H. Kirk mountain yet! I came to this EP a good couple of years after I wrote Hinterland. It’s funny because I initially found Stephen Mallinder’s vocals so menacing, but I eventually just got sucked into all their work in a huge way. I particularly love their mid-80s period when this EP was made, where it’s danceable but it’s still got that slightly grainy, creaky thing going on. I just love a beat and I love the propulsive rhythm that is happening throughout. This record was very influential because I knew that I wanted to use sequenced synth lines in their 303 way. I didn’t actually have a 303, but I wanted to use analogue synths to create those synth basslines really; there’s a lot of that on my new album.

I got to know Stephen through social media and it’s been great to connect with him and just hear his stories about their time in the studio. I used to Google their studio, Western Works, which to me was a bit of a mythical place after seeing some brilliant black and white photos of them at work there. I even got a Soundcraft desk because that’s what they used and later a Yamaha processing unit that was on their equipment list as well. With all these albums, I’m often in investigation mode, discovering what gear they were using and trying to pick it up second hand myself.