In 1973, Stephen Mallinder (universally known, simply, as Mal) joined a musical collective that included two friends, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson. The top song on the charts that year was “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.” The band that coalesced around the trio was called Cabaret Voltaire. Mixing Mallinder’s guitar with tones generated by homemade oscillators, the Cabs (for all names in Sheffield must be reduced to a single syllable) sat at the opposite pole, artistically and commercially. Named after the Zurich cafe where Lenin and Tristan Tzara crossed paths, the band subverted expectations about song structure, politics, and melody. Their experimentation created a bridge between musique concrete and what came to be known as industrial music.
The Cabs had guitars but didn’t use them to play riffs. They had keyboards, but didn’t knock out sounds like Roxy Music or The Doors. As the lead vocalist, Mal spoke his words, instead of singing them. The band cut up tapes of radio transmissions instead of constructing melodies. Throbbing Gristle released their recordings on their cassette label and Factory Records pressed them onto vinyl, but the Cabs never sat comfortably in either camp. With the advance Stevo negotiated for them from Virgin Records, they established their own label, Doublevision, to release videos and records by other artists they liked. Their Western Works studio got new gear from the same deal and provided artists like Chakk, Eric Random, and Test Department with a space to create their own sounds.
We didn’t really want to be musicians.
STEPHEN MALLINDER
The idea of being technically proficient or learning a traditional instrument was kind of anathema to us.
In time, the Cabs would grow towards dance music; moving further and further towards techno purity. They would trade independent labels for majors; provincial parochialism for global reach; and improvised noise for sequenced rhythms. Along the way, they would lose some fans and find others. Commercially, it made little difference: the Cabs rarely got paid properly, no matter which path they took.
Mallinder eventually sold up (though not out) and took his leave to study and teach art in Australia, while working as a journalist. It was an inversion, both artistically and geographically: the Sheffield autodidact turned into an academician at the opposite end of the Earth. Among his activities, he set up OffWorld Sounds, an electronic music label. In 2011, following his return to the UK, he was awarded a PhD in music and popular culture from Murdoch University School of Media, Communication and Culture with the thesis, Movement: Journey of the Beat. The paper explored:
through rhythm, how popular music culture, central to changing perceptions of ‘self’ and ‘others’ through patterns of production and consumption, must also be viewed as instrumental in shaping new platforms of communication that have resonance not only through the emergence of new social networks and cultural economies but also in the development of media literacies and pedagogic strategies.
Dr Mal’s return to the Blighted Isle did not lead to the restoration of Cabaret Voltaire. Instead, he started working with Phill (AKA Phil) Winter and the omni-present Benge Edwards as Wrangler. When John Grant joined up with the group, they became Creep Show.
When Kirk unexpectedly passed away in 2021, the window for a reunion of any sort started to close quickly. With the 50th anniversary of the Cabs looming, Mallinder called on Chris Watson to get together for selected dates on a final tour to showcase the songs that made the group influential for generations of artists. The tour began in October 2025 and wraps in Sheffield on 25 October 2026 in Sheffield, having criss-crossed Europe and North America. Mallinder has explained the tour as a tribute to Kirk, but it is also a reminder of the scale of the group’s evolution and inventiveness.
10. Cabaret Voltaire – Seconds Too Late
Mutant dub from another planet, “Seconds Too Late” was released in 1980 on Rough Trade. By that point, the group was well on its way towards the dance floor. Mallinder’s menacing vocals are supplemented by a vocoder that provides robotic depth.
9. Cabaret Voltaire – The Voice of America / Damage Is Done
The Voice of America reflected the Cabs at their most experimental. The Cold War tension is impressed into the grooves of the record, while the instrumentation is bent and distorted to create a claustrophobic atmosphere. Mallinder’s vocals are matter-of-fact and dystopian, which lends proceedings a sinister air.
Named after a propaganda channel operated by the United States to subvert the Warsaw Pact countries, the material carries political overtones without becoming didactic. The fact that the track is introduced by a police officer giving instructions for crowd management at a rock concert reveals exactly where the Cabs were coming from.
8. Cabaret Voltaire – Yashar
“Yashar” is the point at which disco discovered the Cabs properly. Raised on ska, reggae, and soul music, both Mallinder and Kirk were drawn to the mechanical rhythms of the dance floor. “Yashar” married a sample from The Outer Limits with electronic drums, funky bass from Mallinder, and Kirk’s keyboards. It was also one of the last recordings that Chris Watson took part in.
The bassline is the spine: a simple, circling figure that lets the arrangement spiral into dubby delays, shortwave chatter, and synth splashes without losing its centre of gravity.
7. Cabaret Voltaire – Just Fascination
By the time of “Just Fascination,” Cabaret Voltaire were leaning into a sharper, more structured industrial funk than their Watson-era material could have hinted at. The track rides a rubbery, insistent bassline from Mallinder that weaves between sequencer stabs and clanging percussion, giving the rhythm section a human swing even as the machines snap to grid.
6. Cabaret Voltaire – Sensoria
“Sensoria” is the closest Cabaret Voltaire ever came to a club anthem, even if it still feels like a journalistic exposé of conservative social norms and mind control. Forged from two separate songs on the Micro-Phonies album, it was tooled for the alternative dance floor by John “Tokes” Potoker and Robin “Pop Muzik” Scott.
5. Stephen Mallinder – Three Piece Swing
Mallinder’s first solo album, Pow-Wow, was released on Fetish in 1982. With its Neville Brody sleeve and industrial funk groove, it could have been mistaken for a missing Cabs album from a distance. Examined more closely, it was in a similar spirit to the Eno-Byrne collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, with a touch of decadence.
4. Ku-Ling Bros – Time
During his time in Australia, Mallinder created the project Ku-Ling Bros together with Shane Norton (Soundlab), and Jack Lucas (Yummy Fur/Il Capaninas). The act allowed him to explore his fascination with dance music without the formal roles of the Cabs.
3. Wrangler – Stupid
Formed by Mallinder with Benge Edwards and Phil Winter, Wrangler became his main vehicle for creating and performing music from 2014.
“Stupid” is one of the standouts from the second Wrangler album, White Glue. A slow‑grooving monster built from a 90s‑style electro bassline and constantly mutating synth loops, the rhythm is sparse but aggressive; leaving pockets of silence that make every drum hit and bass accent feel heavier.
Mallinder’s voice arrives distorted and close; turning relatively few words into a sustained mood of sleaze and threat. “Stupid” underlines how Mallinder’s sense of groove and ambiguity can make a simple pattern feel unstable, even menacing, without piling on arrangement tricks.
2. Stephen Mallinder – Shock to the Body
The third solo album from Mallinder, tick tick tick, was released in 2022. This track demonstrated that he had lost none of his gift for treating paranoia as a contagious condition.
1. Cabaret Voltaire – Don’t Argue
The US Army instructional film, Your Job in Germany, provides the vocal samples for this eminently danceable single. The samples come from the U.S. Army instructional film Your Job in Germany, written by Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss, and aimed at occupying GIs being warned not to fraternise with the conquered German population.
With soul girl backing vocals, Adrian Sherwood production, and Keith le Blanc programming the Oberheim DMX, the instrumentation is designer-made for the alternative dance floor. Mallinder’s own words seem like instructions to modern American youth:
It’s not safe to go out, it’s not right to stay home
Listen, my advice is to carry a gun