Code

Sheffield electronic pioneers Cabaret Voltaire's most commercially successful album, CODE, is back, and long overdue after years out of print.

Released in 1987, the eighth studio album from the band has been remastered from the original tapes by Denis Blackham, who has mastered or remastered every Cabaret Voltaire album for over 20 years, and is released on Mute, restoring the original artwork. Co-produced with dub mastermind Adrian Sherwood, it marked a bold shift toward synth-pop and mechanistic funk,  the last Cabaret Voltaire album made with a major budget while remaining defiantly credible, featuring charting singles 'Don't Argue' and 'Here to Go'.

The album's title speaks to a preoccupation that felt urgent at the time and has only grown more resonant since: the creeping integration of technology, computers and programming into every corner of human life. For Cabaret Voltaire, CODE meant control, not just in regards to music-making, but also in terms of social and economic control against a backdrop of excess.

Recorded at the band's own Western Works studio in Sheffield, with Sherwood joining for pre-production before the sessions moved to Red Bus in London to mix, the album captures a band at the height of their commercial and creative powers. This reissue was begun in 2019 with Richard H. Kirk, before his untimely death and completed using his notes, in consultation with Stephen Malinder and Richard's estate, a fitting tribute to his legacy.