Born in Sheffield, former
Cabaret Voltaire member Richard H. Kirk is widely regarded as contemporary techno's busiest man, a distinction he's picked up through a release schedule that keeps discographers sweating and diehard fans near bankruptcy. Kirk released his first album "Disposable Half-Truths" in 1980, and since then he developed a solo career parallel to the band until its dissolution in 1994, featuring a fusion of diverse styles music genres from dance-orientated Techno and House to Experimental Electronica and Ambient. His stylistic palette have pegged Kirk as an evangelist of "intelligent techno", but his affection for African and tribal percussion and thematics connect his various works in obvious ways.
For any serious student of electronica, you could do a lot worse than to pick up the early Cabaret Voltaire stuff. His style is generally to build the tracks gradually, using a lot of classic Detroit-ish melodies and straightforward percussion programming, while using strange sounds and catchy hooks and vocal (often left-leaning politically) vocal samples. His seminal releases mostly occurred on the Warp label ("Reality Net" makes my personal all time Top Ten electronic tracks, which is on "Artificial Intelligence II".) Sandoz' "Digital Lifeforms" is pretty much a classic in the early 90's IDM genre, as is Cabaret Voltaire's "International Language." If you like industrial dub (think the better On-U Sound stuff) you would be remiss not to own Sandoz’ “Chant to Jah”. To be honest, I don’t think any of his releases are bad, although as stated, some are only okey-doke (e.g., Sandoz’ “Every Man Got Dreaming.”)