25th Anniversary of Cabaret Voltaire’s “Mix Up”
September 1st, 2004 by Koldo Barroso
25 years ago now, in September 1979, electronica pioneers Cabaret Voltaire released their debut album “Mix Up”, which along with Kraftwerk, established the foundations of modern Techno and electronic music.
Although the band was originally founded in 1973, they had self-released a bunch of tapes and some tracks for the Factory Records and Rough Trade labels before the edition of this album by Rough Trade. “Mix-Up” features the original trio line-up of Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson and is a classic Cabaret Voltaire work featuring tape loops, sampled “noise”, recorded speeches from preachers and politicians, ethnic chanting, and cut-up techniques inspired by writer William Burroughs. “Mix-Up” was re-issued in 1990 by Mute Records.