Standing astride three decades of contemporary electronic machine music, Richard H. Kirk's contribution to techno has always carried with it, the weight and conviction of a man who has been there from the start of it all. As part of Cabaret Voltaire (they took their name from a dada-ist nightclub from the early 20th century) with Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson (who left in 1981), he has released groundbreaking records from 1973 until 1995. Starting with the tape loop industrial ambience of their early material, to the primal fury of 'Nag Nag Nag', their electro influenced mid eighties period of hits like 'Sensoria' (remember the scary video from MTUSA with the preacher man and rotating camera work) and 'Kino' and ending with their instrumental ambient masterpiece 'The Conversation' on R&S in the mid-nineties. Always to off-kilter for the pop kids and too white for the scene they took much of their inspiration from, Cabaret Voltaire are still a huge influence in the world of techno to this day. Richards' obsession with the tribal energy of the beat can be traced back to their '2x45' record from 1981, the time when Watson left the band, leaving Kirk as the main creative force.
"Cabaret Voltaire as a band are still together even though Mal is still in Australia. We're going to record a new album soon for R&S. The last few Cabaret Voltaire albums had no vocals and I think that confused people", says Richard. "It was right for then but I think we're going to go back to doing stuff with vocals on. People are more open to it now but at one stage having a white guy singing on what we were doing ... people just weren't into it. We were influenced by the electro thing but then again that all relates back to Kraftwerk really who we'd always been impressed by. We ended up working with John Robbie who worked with Arthur Baker on Planet Rock which opened us up to the idea of remixes and really taking the music apart and stripping it back to the bare bones. People always seem to get into electronic music in Sheffield; it has a big tradition in that area. We bought an 808 drum-machine quite early on which was the mainstay, first for electro and then house music and I still use it to this day. It's just such a powerful machine. With 'Sensoria', it was a bit of a landmark for Cabaret Voltaire because it did cross over with the video and everything. The people who were into electro picked up on it and it was popular in clubs in the states which was the area we were drawing most of our inspiration from at that time"
Throughout his time with Cabaret Voltaire, Richard has been working up a back catalog of solo material, under numerous pseudonyms, to almost rival that of Miles Davis. Concept albums, quadruple CD sets, you name it, and it's there. Remember Sweet Exorcist's 'Testone', the original bleep track from 1990 on Warp or any Sandoz release on Touch Records or even his classic self titled 'Virtual State' album from 1995. Because of his ferocious work rate Richard eventually had to set up his own label to keep up.
"I set up Alphaphone when I parted company with Warp because I like to release three or four things a year. It's all work in progress, a process of experimentation that carries on throughout the releases. I try to make each thing a little different by giving it a different name and a different identity. I think that if I put out three albums in a year that all said Richard Kirk on the front people might get a little fed up of me. I don't really know who buys my stuff whether its people who knew me from Cabaret Voltaire or people who got into it through what I was doing on Warp. Because I've been doing this for so long I do tend to feel a bit isolated. You just put the music out and it sells but there's very little feedback until you go and play live and that's when you actually get to meet the people who listen to you. I don't really play much in the UK anymore because there doesn't seem to be any call for it. Most of my work is in Europe or further afield."
Richards' music incorporates elements from every strand of electronic music and occasionally from ethnic music, weaving disparate elements together into one coherent whole that ebbs and flows over the course of an entire album. Neither ambient nor dance but most definitely techno. Hip-hop, house and dub all rear their heads in the mix.
So who or what would you draw inspiration from in the world of modern contemporary music?
"At the moment I'm mainly listening to Jamaican dance hall and dub because it seems to me that there's always something interesting coming out of that island. I visited there for the first time in January and since I got back I've recorded a dub album which I'm going to release later on in the year. I don't really listen to too much contemporary stuff at all because there's just so much of it and the good stuff is so hard to find. I've completely gotten bored with all of the mainstream house thing and like most people I know in Sheffield I got sick of the rave scene when it turned to hardcore. At least we got one good thing in the form of jungle from that period though. That album Prototype Years (on Grooveriders label) from last year really impressed me. The slabs of almost industrial noise they use on those tracks remind me of what we were doing but they've got better beats obviously. Recently I've been drifting back into listening to hip-hop. Rakim's album is on heavy rotation on my stereo at the moment and I listen to the Wu-Tang and lots of other stuff that I missed out on first time around."
So does any of that influence what you do yourself?
"Of course. The trick with music is not to put too much into one piece. I'd rather a track be eight minutes long and sparse than six minutes long and cluttered. Hip-hop is amazing at the moment because it's just so minimal and yet it's managed to retain its funk element. Kraftwerk were the masters of that, of course."
