Cabaret Voltaire - Radiation: BBC Recordings 1984-1986

Cabaret Voltaire came out of Sheffield in 1973, three men with tape loops, a beaten-up rhythm box, and no interest in anything resembling a normal band. They pioneered industrial music before it had a name, and their influence runs through techno, house, hip-hop production, and every act that ever built a song from noise.

Radiation gathers the band's BBC sessions from 1984 to 1986, the stretch when Cabaret Voltaire had sharpened their industrial experiments into something genuinely funky without losing any menace. Recorded for John Peel and company, these versions are leaner and more physical than the studio counterparts.

It is a useful snapshot of a band in transition, moving from the cut-up tape collages of their early years toward the electro and house flavors that would define their later work, and it captures them playing with the urgency that radio sessions always seem to force.

Back on vinyl for fans of the Cabs, early industrial, and the strange corners of eighties British electronic music.