Cabaret Voltaire - Micro-Phonies (LP) - Curacao/Turquoise Vinyl

Cabaret Voltaire’s Micro-Phonies arrived in 1984 on Some Bizarre/Virgin, a sharp pivot point where the Sheffield outfit’s industrial instincts locked into a slicker, body-moving pulse. By then the group had slimmed to the duo of Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk after Chris Watson’s departure a few years earlier. The pair had already nudged their sound toward the dancefloor on The Crackdown, but Micro-Phonies is where the idea fully clicks. The rhythms hit cleaner, the bass snakes through the mix with a sly grin, and the samples and synths feel curated rather than chaotic. It’s still Cabaret Voltaire, all CCTV glare and coded messages, just dressed in club lighting.

A lot of that cohesion comes down to how it was put together. Developed at their Western Works base in Sheffield and co-produced with Flood, the album carries an exacting sense of space. Beats are clipped and rubbery, keyboards sit in tight patterns, and Mallinder’s vocals ride low and conspiratorial. He doesn’t so much sing as lean in, talk-close, and that suits these songs. You get the sense of a band who’ve sifted through their box of found sounds and rhythm ideas and snapped them into place with a designer’s eye. Nothing sprawls. Nothing is wasted.

“Sensoria” is the obvious entry point. Even if you don’t know the record, you’ve heard that synth hook cut through a dance set or a late-night radio show. Peter Care’s video pushed the song further into the culture, splicing graphics and performance in a way that made sense of Cabaret Voltaire’s visual leanings. There’s a reason it remains a calling card for the band and a fan favourite. It’s lean, punchy and weirdly euphoric. “James Brown” is the other big one, a jittery piece of machine funk that toys with celebrity as a sample source and signifier. Neither track softens the band’s bite; they just move with a new kind of confidence.

What keeps Micro-Phonies interesting is how it balances that polish with grit. The drum machines snap, but there’s heat in the low end. Synths gleam, yet the edges stay serrated. Cabaret Voltaire had always absorbed media noise and urban hum into their work, and here they filter it into grooves that still carry unease. You can dance to this record, no question, but it doesn’t flatter you. It watches the room.

In 1984, this blend felt forward for a post-punk outfit, and it still lands with purpose. You can trace lines from Micro-Phonies to later EBM, to UK club music that favoured precision over excess, and to the broader Sheffield story that runs from avant electronics to chart pop and back again. Plenty of critics have pointed to this album as one of their most approachable sets, and they aren’t wrong. It’s the LP I pull when someone wants to understand Cabaret Voltaire beyond legend and influence. Put it on, and the logic of the band becomes obvious within a minute.

The production detail rewards decent speakers. Mallinder’s bass is thick but nimble, the kick patterns are tuned to make everything else pop, and the incidental voices tucked in the mix feel like intercepted messages. It’s easy to imagine these tracks assembled late at night, lights low at Western Works, as loops were nudged, EQs were trimmed, and a groove was allowed to sharpen itself over hours. You can hear the graft.

If you’re hunting Cabaret Voltaire vinyl, Micro-Phonies is a smart start, and the 12-inch of “Sensoria” has its own appeal if you like extended versions. Plenty of Melbourne record store bins still turn up copies, and for anyone outside the city, it’s straightforward to buy Cabaret Voltaire records online without paying silly money. As a listening experience, Micro-Phonies vinyl makes sense of the band’s precision, and it sits nicely beside other Cabaret Voltaire albums on vinyl from the Some Bizarre era. For collectors in vinyl records Australia circles, it’s one of those titles that bridges scenes on a shelf. Post-punk heads grab it for the history. Dance folks keep it for those two singles and the way the kick sits.

Forty years on, Micro-Phonies still feels tightly wired and oddly human. It’s music built from circuits and tape, but it breathes. Put it on, turn it up, and let “Sensoria” rewire the room.