Illustrious founding member of Cabaret Voltaire and long-time cohort to Richard H. Kirk, Mallinder definitely makes up the funkier, more raw, guitar driven side of CV.
Primitive industrial percussion backs found sounds and random homemade instruments
Legendary artist Stephen Mallinder resurrects his solo 1982 work Pow-Wow (originally commissioned by Fetish Records) from the vaults and presented as a deluxe reissue by Suction Records‘ minimal synth/post-punk sub-label Ice Machine. Illustrious founding member of Cabaret Voltaire and long-time cohort to Richard H. Kirk, Mallinder definitely makes up the funkier, more raw, guitar driven side of CV.
Pow-Wow is an exploration of dark blues, funk, and bits of pop woven together in a sort of dadaist haze. Primitive industrial percussion backs found sounds and random homemade instruments. Clever studio tricks turn simple industrial noise experiments into danceable darkwave tracks. It’s somehow very dark and playful at the same time, and flips back and forth between atonal noise and soothing rhythmic funk. You can clearly see the roots of the early CV sound forming here. Mallinder puts an arm around your shoulder and a needle in your ear and takes you for a night on the town.
Pow-Wow is available on Ice Machine June 19, 2020.
Additional notes: This new edition of Pow-Wow contains 14 songs, and is housed in a recreation of the original, iconic Neville Brody jacket, painstakingly recreated using scans of Brody’s original artwork elements. The 2LP vinyl edition (with the direct-order-exclusive BABY-BLUE-VINYL edition limited to 300 copies) is in a reverse board, thick-spine jacket, and adds a 12”x24” folded poster/insert, featuring unused elements from Brody’s original designs, sketches, and instructions for the LP. The CD edition comes in a reverse board, 6-panel digipack.
