Berlin in the ’80s and ’90s,” says Mark Brydon, bassist in funk band Chakk and cofounder of FON Studios, as well as a key figure in our story. “You had all these cheap properties where people could create their own worlds. So there was a romantic mystique around it and a staunch independent spirit.” Named Western Works, Cabaret Voltaire’s studio became a hotbed of experimentation. “This was the logical fulfillment of the do-it-yourself impulse,” wrote Simon Reynolds in Rip It Up and Start Again . “You didn’t even need to hire a studio and deal with the resident recalcitrant engineer; you could record it yourself and spend as much time fine-tuning as you liked.” As Richard H. Kirk told Reynolds: “When you have your own studio, you don’t have to be beholden to some record company that’s paying the bills, [and] Western Works gave us the freedom to do what we wanted.” Released on pivotal London punk label Rough Trade, Cabaret Voltaire’s early LPs Mix Up , The Voice of America , and Red Mecca (released between 1979 and ’81) created a bleak industrial funk sound that captured the tension, agitation, and paranoia of Thatcher’s Britain. Arriving in Sheffield from Sunderland in 1979, Mark Brydon immediately connected with this raw industrial sound. “I went to see Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle and had no idea that this kind of music existed, so it really was a revelation,” he recalls. “The music was physical—all these bouncing delays and beyond anything that I heard before. I was a funk and soul head, and all of a sudden there was this music that had a connection to this but was totally revolutionary in its sound.” Adding to Chris Watson’s tape loops and electronic oscillations with sequencers, drum machines, and digital delays, Cabaret Voltaire’s 1982 LP 2x45 (that came in one of their many distinctive Neville Brody–designed sleeves) found them creating a kind of austere dubby electro-funk made for the darker recesses of the dance floor. Growing up in the hills on the outskirts of Sheffield, Barratt remembers the impact the group’s raw dance sound had on him. “The Cabs [Cabaret Voltaire] had been around since 1973 and had an aura of being deeply rooted originals, properly authentic,” he says. “So I respected them but didn’t really prick my ears up until a record called ‘Just Fascination’ came out, because it was basically a no- fucking-about dance record. That 12-inch [released in 1983] was mixed by New York’s John Luongo who mixed some
incredible disco records, but his later work for the Cabs is also great.” Cabaret Voltaire also made connections to the New York clubs through their 12-inch “Yashar” (from 2x45 ) recorded for Manchester’s Factory Records and remixed by John Robie. “He wanted to remix it to work for that New York electro scene,” Richard H. Kirk recalls. “They took quarter-inch tapes of his ‘Yashar’ mix down to the Funhouse [Jellybean Benitez’s temple to all things electro] to test on the crowd. What he did with ‘Yashar’ was a big catalyst in terms of us realizing [that,] well, we can strip this down, get rid of some of the clutter, and tweak a few rhythmic elements, and it’s actually going to work in a club.” “Yashar” joined a string of electronic records from the North of England that made a big impact in the clubs of New York, Detroit, and Chicago—from New Order’s “Blue Monday” to Section 25’s “Looking from a Hilltop.” The Sheffield sound in particular connected strongly with the first wave of techno producers in the fellow post-industrial city of Detroit. “The three founding fathers of the Motor City Techno movement—Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson— were primarily inspired by European electronic music, with the sounds of the Steel City towards the top of their list of influences,” wrote Matt Anniss in his erudite book Join the Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music . Western Works became the incubator for one of Sheffield’s most important other electronic groups of the early 1980s. “Chakk began with a group of us musicians who all lived together, and next door was Alan Cross, who had a four-track tape recorder,” recalls Mark Brydon. With Brydon on guitar and bass, Mark Tattersall on drums, Sim Lister on horns, and Alan Cross on synth and tapes, Chakk debuted with the self- released LP Clocks and Babies in 1982. Its primal electronic DIY sound (built via Cross’s four-track tape machine, home-built echo, and effects boxes) found them natural if much jazzier counterparts to Cabaret Voltaire. Kirk and Mallinder loved what they heard and invited Chakk to their Western Works studio to record a single for their Doublevison label. “At the time, I was quite intimidated by them because of their stage presence, but they turned out to be two of the loveliest people you could meet,” says Brydon. Recorded in 1984, “Out of the Flesh” was a raw slab
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