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The Guardian
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Yes, there was a riot, but it was great': Cabaret Voltaire on violent gigs, nuclear noise – and returning to mark 50 years
Fifty years ago, Cabaret Voltaire shocked the people of Sheffield into revolt. A promoter screamed for the band to get off stage, while an audience baying for blood had to be held back with a clarinet being swung around for protection. All of which was taking place over the deafening recording of a looped steamhammer being used in place of a drummer, as a cacophony of strange, furious noises drove the crowd into a frenzy. 'We turned up, made a complete racket, and then got attacked,' recalls Stephen Mallinder. 'Yes, there was a bit of a riot, and I ended up in hospital, but it was great. That gig was the start of something because nothing like that had taken place in Sheffield before. It was ground zero.' Mallinder and his Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Chris Watson are sitting together again in Sheffield, looking back on that lift-off moment ahead of a handful of shows to commemorate the milestone. 'It is astonishing,' says Watson. 'Half a century. It really makes you stop, think and realise the significance.' The death in 2021 of third founding member Richard H Kirk was a trigger for thinking about ending things with finality. 'It'll be nice if we can use these shows to remind people what we did,' says Mallinder. 'To acknowledge the music, as well as get closure.' It's impossible to overstate how ahead of their time 'the Cabs' were. Regularly crowned the godfathers of the Sheffield scene, inspiring a wave of late 1970s groups such as the Human League and Clock DVA, they were making music in Watson's attic as early as 1973. Their primitive explorations with tape loops, heavily treated vocals and instruments, along with home-built oscillators and synthesisers, laid the foundations for a singular career that would span experimental music, post-punk, industrial funk, electro, house and techno. 'There was nothing happening in Sheffield that we could relate to,' says Mallinder. 'We had nothing to conform to. We didn't give a fuck. We just enjoyed annoying people, to be honest.' Inspired by dadaism, they would set up speakers in cafes and public toilets, or strap them to a van and drive around Sheffield blasting out their groaning, hissing and droning in an attempt to spook and confuse people. 'It did feel a bit violent and hostile at times, but more than anything we just ruined people's nights,' laughs Mallinder, with Watson recalling a memory from their very first gig: 'The organiser said to me after, 'You've completely ruined our reputation.' That was the best news we could have hoped for.' Insular and incendiary, the tight-knit trio had their own language, says Mallinder. 'We talked in a cipher only we understood – we had our own jargon and syntax.' When I interviewed Kirk years before his death, he went even further. 'We were like a terrorist cell,' he told me. 'If we hadn't ended up doing music and the arts, we might have ended up going around blowing up buildings as frustrated people wanting to express their disgust at society.' Instead they channelled that disgust into a type of sonic warfare – be it the blistering noise and head-butt attack of their landmark electro-punk track Nag Nag Nag, or the haunting yet celestial Red Mecca, an album rooted in political tensions and religious fundamentalism that throbs with a paranoid pulse. Watson left the group in 1981 to pursue a career in sound recording for TV. Mallinder and Kirk invested in technology, moving away from the industrial sci-fi clangs of their early period into grinding yet glistening electro-funk. As the second summer of love blazed in the UK in 1988, they headed to Chicago instead – to make Groovy, Laidback and Nasty with house legend Marshall Jefferson. 'We got slagged off for working with Marshall,' recalls Mallinder. 'People were going, 'England has got its own dance scene. Why aren't you working with Paul Oakenfold?' But we're not the fucking Happy Mondays. We'd already been doing that shit for years. We wanted to acknowledge our connection to where we'd come from: Black American music.' This major label era for the group produced moderate commercial success before they wound things down in the mid-1990s. But in the years since, everyone from New Order to Trent Reznor has cited the group's influence. Mallinder continued to make electronic music via groups such as Wrangler and Creep Show, the latter in collaboration with John Grant, a Cabs uber-fan. Watson says leaving the group was 'probably the most difficult decision I've ever made' but he has gone on to have an illustrious career, winning Baftas for his recording work with David Attenborough on shows such as Frozen Planet. He recalls 'the most dangerous journey I've ever made' being flown in a dinky helicopter that was akin to a 'washing machine with a rotor blade' by drunk Russian pilots in order to reach a camp on the north pole. On 2003 album Weather Report, Watson harnessed his globetrotting field recording adventures with stunning effect, turning long, hot wildlife recording sessions in Kenya surrounded by buzzing mosquitoes, or the intense booming cracks of colossal glaciers in Iceland, into a work of immersive musical beauty. When he was at the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania with Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, recording sounds for the score to the 2019 TV series Chernobyl, he couldn't help but draw parallels to his Cabs days. 'It was horrific but really astonishing – such a tense, volatile, hostile environment,' he says. 'But it really got me thinking about working with those sounds again, their musicality and how it goes back to where I started.' Sign up to Sleeve Notes Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week after newsletter promotion Mallinder views Watson's work as a Trojan horse for carrying radical sounds into ordinary households. 'The Cabs may have changed people's lives but Chris is personally responsible for how millions of people listen to the world,' he says, with clear pride. 'And one of the things that helped make that happen was the fact that he was in the Cabs, so through that lens he opened up people's ears.' Watson agrees, saying Cabaret Voltaire 'informed everything I've ever done'. Watson's field recordings will play a part in the upcoming shows: he'll rework 2013 project Inside the Circle of Fire, in which he recorded Sheffield itself, from its wildlife to its steel industry via football terraces and sewers. 'It's hopefully not the cliched industrial sounds of Sheffield,' he says, 'but my take on the signature sounds of the city.' These will be interwoven with a set Mallinder is working on with his Wrangler bandmate Ben 'Benge' Edwards as well as longtime friend and Cabs collaborator Eric Random. 'We've built 16 tracks up from scratch to play live,' says Mallinder. 'With material spanning from the first EP' – 1978's Extended Play – 'through to Groovy …' Mallinder says this process has been 'a bit traumatic – a very intense period of being immersed in my past and the memories that it brought, particularly of Richard. This isn't something you can do without emotion.' Mallinder and Kirk were not really speaking in the years leading up to his death, with Kirk operating under the Cabaret Voltaire name himself. 'Richard was withdrawn and didn't speak to many people,' says Mallinder. 'And I was one of those people. He wanted to be in his own world. It was difficult because I missed him and there was a lot of history, but I accepted it.' There will be no new music being made as Cabaret Voltaire because, they stress, tsuch a thing cannot exist without Kirk. Instead, it's a brief victory lap for the pair, a tribute to their late friend, as they sign off on a pioneering legacy with maybe one last chance for a riot. 'Richard would probably hate us doing this but it's done with massive respect,' Mallinder says. 'I'm sad he's not here but there's such love for the Cabs that I want to give people the opportunity to acknowledge what we did. You can't deny the music we made is important – and this is a way to celebrate that.' Cabaret Voltaire play a Forge Warehouse, Sheffield, 25 October, then tour the UK from 17 to 21 November. Tickets on sale 10am 6 June
Forbes
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Becoming Led Zeppelin' Documentary Arrives On Netflix This Week
"Becoming Led Zeppelin" partial poster image featuring Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and ... More John Bonham. Becoming Led Zeppelin — a rock documentary featuring Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham — debuts on Netflix this week. Directed by Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, Becoming Led Zeppelin debuted on IMAX screens on Feb. 7 and expanded to regular theaters on Feb. 14 before pivoting to digital streaming on April 4. The official summary from the film's studio Sony Pictures Classics reads, 'Becoming Led Zeppelin explores the origins of this iconic group and their meteoric rise in just one year against all the odds.' Led Zeppelin, featuring Plant on lead vocals, Page on guitar, Jones on bass and Bonham on drums, formed in 1968 and disbanded in 1980 following the tragic death of Bonham at age 32. During Led Zeppelin's 12-year run, the band released eight albums of original material and in 1982, issued a final album, Coda, which consisted of unreleased rejected tracks, outtakes and live recordings. The band released several classic songs from 1968-1980, including 'Black Dog,' 'Immigrant Song,' 'Rock and Roll,' 'Whole Lotta Love,' 'Stairway to Heaven,' 'The Ocean,' 'In the Evening,' 'Kashmir,' 'Ramble On' and 'Houses of the Holy.' According to Netflix, Becoming Led Zeppelin will arrive on the streaming service on Saturday, June 7. For viewers who don't subscribe to the platform, Netflix offers an ad-based package for $7.99 per month for two supported devices, an ad-free package for $17.99 per month for two supported devices and an ad-free package for $24.99 for four supported devices with 4K Ultra HD programming. Becoming Led Zeppelin marks the first time a documentary about the classic rock group has been authorized by the band. As such, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones granted all-new interviews to directors Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, while the filmmakers tracked down never-before-heard and seen footage featuring John Bonham. During an interview with Hey U Guys alongside MacMahon and McGourtry,' Page explained why he finally said yes to a documentary about the group. 'All the documentaries that I'd seen up to this up to this one were really, really very, very lightweight,' Page told HeyUGuys. 'They didn't actually give any sort of perspective on what was actually happening with the music and why the music was what it was, why there was improvisation every night and that made us very different to everybody else. No, they missed all of it.' Page added that prior attempts by people attempting to document the career of Led Zeppelin 'could put in the figures of how many albums we sold, but it's like, 'Yeah, but you're forgetting why those albums are selling.'' 'So, I didn't have very much uh patience with those sort of things,' Page explained to HeyUGuys. 'I had a lot of patience with Bernard and Allison when they were when they were presenting the idea of what they wanted to do because it was so in line with the way that I thought about it, too … I'm so thrilled to be here now that they manifested exactly what they said they would do.' Becoming Led Zeppelin begins streaming on Saturday, June 7, on Netflix.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The chilling truth behind the heavenly voice of the 'Angel of Rome': Ethereal song of the only castrato ever recorded goes viral as people learn about the Catholic Church's horrendous role in mutilating boys
For centuries, their voices soared in gilded churches and candlelit concert halls - otherworldly, pure and achingly beautiful. But behind the ethereal sound of the castrato singers lay an unspeakable truth. To preserve the high, angelic tone of boyhood, thousands of young boys were castrated. After women were forbidden by the Pope from singing in sacred spaces, boys with exceptional vocal talent were mutilated before puberty, preventing their voices from breaking and allowing them to sing soprano with the lung power of grown men. Now, a viral video shared by opera singer and vocal coach Eva Lindqvist, known as @evateachingopera on Instagram, has pulled back the curtain on this chilling chapter in musical history. In the video, Eva plays a rare and eerie recording. 'This is the voice of Alessandro Moreschi, the last known castrato singer and the only whose singing was ever recorded,' she tells her followers. 'His voice sounds fragile, and almost ghostly, right? What I have to say is he wasn't young anymore when these recordings were produced.' Moreschi was castrated around the age of seven for so-called 'medical reasons' - a common euphemism at the time. He would go on to join the Pope's personal choir at the Sistine Chapel, earning the nickname 'The Angel of Rome.' The recordings, made in 1902 and 1904, capture a voice that is equal parts ethereal and unsettling - a glimpse of a practice long buried by history. 'Why were boys with beautiful voices castrated from the 16th-19th century?' Eva asks in the video. 'To preserve their angelic tone. The result was the power of a man with the range of a boy. 'The practice began in the 16th century, mainly for church music when women were banned from singing in sacred places, and it only ended in the late 19th century - can you believe that?' The Catholic Church's role in the proliferation of castrato singers has remained controversial, with calls for an official apology for the mutilations carried out under its watch. As early as 1748, Pope Benedict XIV attempted to ban the practice, but it was so entrenched, and so popular with audiences, that he eventually relented, fearing it would cause church attendance to drop. While Moreschi remains the only castrato whose solo voice was ever recorded, others like Domenico Salvatori, who sang alongside him, also made ensemble recordings - none of which have survived as solo performances. Moreschi officially retired in 1913 and died in 1922, marking the true end of the era. Eva's video, which has now racked up thousands of views and stirred a wave of emotional reactions, concludes with a poignant message. 'Alessandro Moreschi's voice is a haunting reminder of a time when boys were altered for art - praised for their voices, but silenced in so many other ways,' she wrote in the caption. 'His story isn't just vocal history - it's a glimpse into beauty, sacrifice and a world we can't imagine today.' Castration, often carried out between the ages of 8 and 10, was performed under grim conditions. Some boys were placed in ice or milk baths, given opium to induce a coma and then subjected to techniques such as twisting the testicles until they atrophied or, in rare cases, complete surgical removal. Many didn't survive the procedure - either from accidental opium overdose, or from being rendered unconscious by prolonged compression of the carotid artery. Where the procedures were carried out remained a closely guarded secret. Italian society, even then, was deeply ashamed. The act was technically illegal across all provinces, and yet boys continued to disappear into the folds of choir schools, never to reach physical manhood. The physical effects on those who survived were dramatic. The absence of testosterone meant that bone joints didn't harden, resulting in elongated limbs and ribs. This unique anatomy, combined with rigorous training, gave the castrati immense lung capacity and vocal flexibility, allowing them to sing with supernatural agility and power unmatched by male or female voices today. Despite their cultural cachet, castrati were rarely referred to by that name. More polite, yet often derisive, terms like musico or evirato (emasculated) were used. In public, they were celebrated and in private, they were pitied. Rumours have long circulated that the Vatican harboured castrato singers until the 1950s. While false, these stories hint at the mystique surrounding Moreschi's successors. One singer, Domenico Mancini, was so adept at mimicking Moreschi that even Vatican officials believed he was a true castrato. In reality, he was simply a falsettist - an uncastrated singer trained to imitate the distinctive sound. But it is Moreschi's voice that endures as a spectral echo of a vanished world. As Eva Lindqvist says: 'The Angel of Rome died in April 1922 - the voice of a lost world.' Among the most legendary castrato singers were Giovanni Battista Velluti and Giusto Fernando Tenducci - two flamboyant, fascinating figures whose lives read like a Regency-era soap opera. The last of the greats: Giovanni Battista Velluti Giovanni Battista Velluti, often referred to simply as 'Giambattista', was born in 1780 in Pausula, Italy, and is widely recognised as the last great castrato. But his rise to fame began in shocking circumstances. At just eight years old, Velluti was castrated by a local doctor, supposedly as a treatment for a cough and high fever. Despite his father's plans for him to join the military, his new physical condition meant he was instead enrolled in music training - a decision that would ultimately change his life and the opera world forever. Velluti quickly gained attention for his extraordinary voice and dramatic presence. He even became close with a future Pope, Luigi Cardinal Chiaramonte, who would later become Pope Pius VII, after performing a cantata during his teenage years. He became so renowned that major composers began writing roles specifically for him. Velluti made his London debut in 1825. Although he was the first castrato to perform in London in 25 years, and was initially met with scepticism, the curiosity and spectacle of his voice drew huge crowds. He went on to manage The King's Theatre in 1826, starring in Aureliano In Palmira and Tebaldo Ed Isolina by Morlacchi. But his theatrical reign wasn't without drama. His diva-like behaviour led to tensions backstage, with reports that some singers refused to share the stage with him. His stint as theatre manager ended following disputes over chorus pay - a financial spat that brought his behind-the-scenes ambitions to a halt. Velluti made one final return to London in 1829, though only for concert performances. After retiring from music, he lived a quieter life as an agriculturist, passing away in 1861 at the age of 80. His death marked the end of an era - he was the last great operatic castrato. The scandalous soprano: Giusto Fernando Tenducci If Velluti was the final chapter of the castrato phenomenon, Giusto Fernando Tenducci was one of its most flamboyant and scandalous stars. Born around 1735 in Siena, Tenducci trained at the Naples Conservatory after undergoing castration as a boy. He first rose to fame in Italy but soon found his true stage in the UK, where his career and personal life took several unexpected turns. He arrived in London in 1758 and began performing at the prestigious King's Theatre. Tenducci also found himself in financial trouble, spending eight months in a debtors' prison, but it didn't dampen his career. By 1764, he was back at the King's Theatre, starring in a new opera in which he sang the title role opposite the star castrato Giovanni Manzuoli. But it was his private life that truly stunned society. In 1766, Tenducci secretly married a 15-year-old Irish heiress named Dorothea Maunsell. The marriage was repeated the following year with a formal licence, despite the glaring issue that he was a castrato. Unsurprisingly, the marriage caused a scandal. In 1772, it was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation or impotence, one of the very few legal grounds on which a woman could successfully sue for divorce at the time. Notorious libertine Giacomo Casanova claimed in his autobiography that Dorothea had given birth to two children with Tenducci. But modern biographer Helen Berry, while digging into the case, couldn't verify the claim, and suggested the children may have belonged to Dorothea's second husband. Still, the speculation endures, as does Tenducci's status as one of the most controversial castrati to grace the stage. A close friend of Moreschi's: Domenico Salvatori Domenico Salvatori was a star in his own right in the rarefied, gilded world of 19th-century sacred music. It wasn't long before he made the leap to the even more prestigious Sistine Chapel Choir, where he transitioned to singing soprano or mezzo-soprano, depending on the repertoire. There, he became an integral part of the choir's inner workings, eventually taking on the role of choir secretary, a trusted position. Salvatori's devotion to the chapel and his music was matched by his friendships. He was especially close to Moreschi. While Salvatori never recorded any solo material, he did lend his voice to a handful of early phonograph sessions - musical relics that remain among the few surviving audio records of the castrato sound. Though the recordings were intended to showcase the Sistine Choir's choral sound rather than individual singers, careful listeners can still pick out Salvatori's unique tone. Salvatori died in Rome on 11 December 1909. But even in death, his bond with Moreschi remained unbroken. He was laid to rest in the Monumental Cimitero di Campo Verano - not just near, but in Moreschi's tomb, a quiet but deeply telling tribute to a lifelong friendship rooted in music, faith and their shared place in history as the final echoes of a vanishing vocal tradition.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Fleetwood Mac Reaches A New Career Peak With A Decades-Old Classic
Rumours made music history when Fleetwood Mac released the collection back in 1977. The pop-rock effort was heralded as a critical triumph at the time, as well as a commercial juggernaut, and it is now regarded as one of the greatest albums ever. In the decades since it dropped, the project has remained a behemoth — one that has enjoyed a second life once the music industry shifted from pure purchases to streaming platforms. Rumours and its many hit singles began performing well across all consumption metrics, as Americans keep buying the set in addition to listening to it on streaming sites. As the beloved title approaches its half-century birthday, it is still climbing to new highs on the Billboard rankings in the U.S. This week, Rumours appears on half a dozen Billboard charts dedicated to full-lengths and EPs. Its performance is mixed, and it only manages to climb on one of them – but on that roster, the set soars to a new all-time peak. On that one list, Rumours jumps from No. 35 to No. 30 on the Top Streaming Albums ranking, which focuses exclusively on the projects that rack up the most plays on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and others. Fleetwood Mac has only sent one set to the Top Streaming Albums chart, so every time Rumours hits a new peak, the band does as well. The full-length pushes to its never-before-seen high point 34 frames into its time on the tally. Rumours is largely holding steady in the U.S., even as it climbs on the Top Streaming Albums ranking. This frame, it continues to appear on the Billboard 200, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, and Top Rock Albums lists, not budging an inch on any of them. At the same time, it declines — but only slightly — on both the Top Album Sales and Vinyl Albums charts. While Rumours has only spent a few months on the Top Streaming Albums chart, it has racked up years on every other list on which it appears. Fleetwood Mac's collection has spent the most time on the Billboard 200, where it's up to 634 stays. It has already passed more than 400 frames on all of the other rosters.
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Chicago's former Wax Trax! Records building officially gets city landmark status
The Chicago City Council this week officially designated the former Wax Trax! Records building in Lincoln Park an official Chicago landmark. The City Council approved the designation at its meeting on Wednesday. The old Wax Trax! Records building is located at 2449 N. Lincoln Ave., about half a block northwest of the six-way intersection with Halsted Street and Fullerton Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. The two-story Renaissance Revival-style building was constructed in the 1880s, the city said. From 1978 until 1993, the building housed Wax Trax! Records. Founders Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher opened the first Wax Trax! store in Denver in 1975, and moved to Chicago and opened the Lincoln Park store three years later. Wax Trax! stocked both new and used records and cassette tapes and later CDs and videos. The store opened in the era of disco, but its original focus was punk, post-punk, rockabilly, glam, English R&B, power pop, psychedelic and psychopop, mod, European synth pop, and new wave — to name a few, as listed in order in a summary to the city this past winter. Soon enough, Nash and Flesher branched out from just running a record store and founded the Wax Trax! Records label. The first release on the label was a release by the Chicago punk group Strike Under in 1981, the summary noted. The Wax Trax! store moved to 1657 N. Damen Ave. in Wicker Park in 1993. Jim Nash died in 1995, and the record store then closed the next year. Flesher died in 2010. The building most recently housed the Lincoln Park Institute for Oral & Cosmetic Surgery. Meanwhile, Jim Nash's daughter, Julia Nash, and her husband, Mark Skillicorn, resurrected the Wax Trax! label in 2014. They also led the push to preserve the original Wax Trax! home. The landmark designation now in place protects all exterior elevations of the building, the city said. Adam Harrington Adam Harrington is a web producer at CBS Chicago, where he first arrived in January 2006. contributed to this report.
