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Album Reviews
Album Review: Kora! Kora! Kora! – Cabaret Voltaire Versions (Shiva Records)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 8 December 2008
‘Cabaret Voltaire Versions’ is a collaboration between dub-antipodeans Kora and the Steel City’s own Richard H Kirk. On hearing about the instigator of Cabaret Voltaire being involved in any project I get excited. However, this album left me pretty disappointed. Kora and Kirk (and I appreciate that this is a big ask) never reach the levels of musical weirdness forced upon us by Cabaret Voltaire. ‘Flow’ comes closest, but not that close. It’s a step backwards. Instead of head beating proto-electronica we are faced with a dancefloor-ready noisy electro album. I’m sure that if you played it in certain clubs (any in Shoreditch and Razor Stiletto in Sheffield) that trade on a pseudo-trashy glamour it would go down really well. This is definitely the case with album opener ‘Skankenstein’ which has the falsetto house meets TV On The Radio vocals and hyperactive electro that the kids seem to like. It is kind of okay. Some other tracks peter into a Kora’s comfort zone of dub with Kirk adding Kraftwerk style synth dollops. Unlike Caberet Voltaire, this album is not going to stand out from the musical crowd. I’m sure it will grace a lot of clubs over the next few months and be pillaged for mixes. Richard H Kirk’s attempt to make “dark dance music” with Kora just doesn’t fuck with your head in the way it would have done had Mr Kirk made this in Sheffield between 1978 and 1982. And that’s a shame. Though shouldn’t he be retired by now anyway, instead of being a creepy old man hanging around clubs? PG
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