By far one of the most prolific musicians around, Richard
H Kirk could be deemed as the godfather of the British
electronic scene as much as Brian Eno pioneered ambient
music in the seventies. Whether as part of Cabaret Voltaire
or through his solo work, Kirk has over the years shaped
up part of the electronic movement. Following the release
of a series of Cabaret Voltaire retrospectives and the
first in a series of unreleased solo projects last year,
Richard H Kirk now presents Earlier/Later –
Unreleased Projects Anthology 74-89, scanning some
of his previously unheard material, and reissues the
first Sandoz album, Digital Lifeforms, originally
published on Touch over ten years ago, with some additional
unreleased material recorded during the same period.
Earlier/Later sees Richard H Kirk collecting
over two hours of previously unreleased recordings committed
to tape during a fifteen-year period, while working
with Cabaret Voltaire. Split into two CDs, interestingly
proposed in reverse chronological order, with Later
(CD1) containing a series of classic electro moments,
while Earlier (CD2) is at once darker and more
introspective in tone. Selected from over seven hours
of musical archives, these tracks have never been played
to anyone before, with the exception of the 12”
version of Martyrs Of Palestine, composed to
commemorate the December 1985 attacks against Rome and
Vienna airport. This track highlights the political
orientation often present in Kirk’s work and his
need to use his music to convey messages, and appears
terribly relevent in the light of current events across
the globe.
The sound on Later is symptomatic of the post-industrial
scene of the late seventies/early eighties, yet the
fluidity characteristic of Kirk’s later work is
already partly palpable here, especially on the house-influenced
Digital Globe or One Three Fourgasm.
If anything, the first part of this record demonstrates
that, although his sound has gained in maturity and
diversified greatly since, Kirk has remained pretty
faithful to his earlier work. The album also features
a cover of Can’s I Want More, which sees
Kirk adopting a rare electro-pop format. Elsewhere,
the extensive use of vocal samples, often lifted from
films or TV programs, preempt the rise of house and
give these pieces a necessary human aspect to avoid
them feeling too heavy and contrived.
‘I almost think that’s the album I should
be making now’ comments Richard H Kirk in the
press release about Earlier. The consistency
of sound on Earlier gives the second part of
this collection much more of a proper album feel. Partly
recorded at Kirk’s parents’ house using
drum machines and tape loops, and partly in his studio,
Western Works, where he still records now, the majority
of the twenty tracks presented here are based around
abrasive soundscapes and isolationist ambiences. The
work is more abstract and introvert than on Later,
with melodies often scarce and distant, while the sonic
scope seems narrower. The abundance of metallic noises
is indicative of the industrial roots of Kirk’s
work and echoes early Cabaret Voltaire recordings, creating
an interesting parallel, between the band’s work
at the time and Kirk’s burgeoning solo career,
and also serves at highlighting the major differences
between the two.
Until the early nineties, Kirk released sporadic albums
and EPs in between Cabaret Voltaire releases. As the
Cabs’ work was winding down, his solo career became
more prominent, spurting a variety of projects and aliases,
starting with Acid Horse, in which Kirk appears under
the name of Harold Sandoz, and two years later, with
Sweet Exorcist, a collaboration with DJ Parrot. The
pair would be responsible for the first album release
on the then blossoming Warp Records. It is in 1992 that
the first occurrence of Sandoz can be located, in the
shape of a 12”, Limbo, which prefigured
Digital Lifeforms, released a year later on
Touch. With this album, Richard H Kirk acknowledged
the then-relatively new electronica movement pioneered
by the likes of Aphex
Twin, Autechre,
Black Dog, B12 or
Speedy J even more
than on Virtual States, published that same
year on Warp. Quickly labeled Intelligent Dance Music
(IDM), the music created by this new wave of musicians
was flourishing not on the industrial and punk scenes
as had Cabaret Voltaire, but on the club scene of the
mid-to-late eighties, adapting the subtle forms of the
Chicago/Detroit dance scenes to push electronic music
into lounges.
For Kirk, this was a logical progression from his work
with Cabaret Voltaire. Following the departure of Chris
Watson in 1983, Cabaret Voltaire had progressively moved
to dancier grounds before going silent towards the end
of the eighties. Kirk and Mallinder returned in 1990
with Groovy, Laidback & Nasty, an album
recorded with Chicago house producer Marshall Jefferson.
With Digital Lifeforms, Kirk presented a varied
collection of purely melodic electronica, in which can
also be detected African and dub influences, already
by then a vivid characteristic of his solo work, most
clearly on the stunning White Darkness.
The re-edition of this seminal first Sandoz album gives
Kirk the opportunity to add a second CD of mostly unreleased
tracks, with the exception of Ocean Reflection_,
originally featured on Nu Electronica’s 1994 Global
Technological Innovation compilation, while White
Stab/Steel Darkness appeared under a different
form on a number of compilations as White Darkness.
The remaining eight tracks presented over the seventy-four
minutes of the second CD were recorded around the same
time as Digital Lifeforms, and denote similar
musical patterns and influences. From the straightforward
beat pattern and vocal samples of Communicate (With
The Future) and the mixed origins of White
Ta/Steel Darkness, Human Spirit and Shanpwel
to the retro shapes of Zombi Savane or the
vast soundscapes of Ocean Reflection or Mirror,
the additional CD completes the original album surprisingly
well and appears to give it more coherence.
The simultaneous release of these two albums allow fans
of Richard H Kirk to dig deeper into the man’s
electronic world and draw some bridges between his work
with Cabaret Voltaire and his solo releases, while it
provides a panoramic view of the evolution of his work
for new comers. While Earlier/Later gives an
insight into part of the band’s behind-the-scene
sonic explorations through Kirk’s own compositions,
Digital Lifeforms Redux shows the transition
between his late eighties persona and his more modern
work. If not indispensable to comprehend the work of
this pioneer, both albums document specific moments
in Kirk’s career and are, in this context, quite
essential.
Earlier/Later 4.2 / Digital Lifeforms Redux
4.6 |
