Cabaret Voltaire was one of those bands that Los Angeles goths didn’t expect to ever see in their city again. Other bands in that group of rare elusive artists are Einstürzende Neubauten, Laibach, and Dead Can Dance. Throughout 2016 to 2019, Cabaret Voltaire played numerous European shows and festival dates while Americans salivated at the thought of them crossing the Atlantic. At the time, Trump-era visa standards made it difficult for many bands to play in America, especially ones with more revolutionary mindsets like Cabaret Voltaire, who have been making revolutionary music on both overt and subliminal levels since the band’s inception in 1973.
related: Nitzer Ebb And Flow – A Night of Dance and Darkness at The Music Box
Then, when the band reunited again in 2025, Los Angeles thought it had another chance at seeing the proto industrial electro punk legends. Before that, Stephen Mallinder, the band’s creator and visionary multi instrumentalist and singer, would make DJ appearances, only deepening the desires of LA’s underground for his band. Our wish was finally answered on May 12, 2026, when Cabaret Voltaire transformed The Bellwether into the best goth club in Los Angeles for one night.
There was a special feeling in the air walking up to The Bellwether, where underground music lovers of every stripe lined up to get inside. Goths young and old, of every fashion and hairstyle, flooded into both stories of the club. Artists, normies, actors, writers, and musicians were all in attendance. Something about this show rallied every artsy fartsy believer in alternative music to The Bellwether like it was the destination of some kind of subconscious pilgrimage.
related: 122 Hours of Adult. at The Lodge Room
Once the dance floor began amassing bodies clad in black, I Speak Machine came onstage for a tour de force prelude to Cabaret Voltaire’s total takeover. I Speak Machine was heavy, hard edged, and uncompromising. With baroque visuals behind her, Tara Busch commanded the audience with a version of industrial that developed into a much more combustible sound than Cabaret Voltaire’s initial sonic dream. On some level, everyone in attendance was marked or stamped by Busch’s art after her set, with slices of her visuals becoming permanent nightmare fodder.
Cabaret Voltaire’s glitching, electrified logo appearing on the video screen behind the stage got The Bellwether’s blood boiling before the band appeared onstage. Then, once the four members materialized the moment they had all been imagining for so many years, it took The Bellwether a second to understand what they were hearing. Then, within a few more seconds of the first song, “24/24,” you could hear screams of joy coming from the audience as they began to sync with the music.
related: Spike Hellis Come Home to Das Bunker After 40-date Headlining Tour
That music that Cabaret Voltaire was playing and originated is of such a unique sonic character that all I could think about was how so many of the modern industrial bands I love trace back sonically to Cabaret Voltaire. Your Skinny Puppy’s, High Functioning Flesh’s, and Spike Hellis’s all owe their sound to CV.
What Cabaret Voltaire does is take jazz into electronic music the same way punk did with heavy, fast guitars. They make sense out of noise the same way the great Beat authors made poetic sense out of the scramble of ideas and experiences that made up American life. The sort of musical sense Cabaret Voltaire makes is both danceable and comprehensible. You know exactly what Stephen Mallinder means when he sings “Spies in the Wires” or the set’s closing track, “Sensoria.”
related: Youth Code Break The Ice at The Echo – Yours’, With Malice
Track after track, every player set the audience off, from the digitized drums to the signature synths to Mallinder’s grooving guitar beats making the audience’s feet move through the most rigid, grotesque sounds. Witnessing Cabaret Voltaire live is the only way a lover of industrial music can truly understand the genre and sound. Seeing how a band makes warmth and beauty out of ugliness and cold machines is Cabaret Voltaire’s contribution to art, one that has been copied in every generation of music since.
In other words, Cabaret Voltaire is industrial music’s source code. The branch in musical history that grew so many fruits and leaves for the world to enjoy.
Now that the American leg of the tour has ended, Cabaret Voltaire move on to Europe where they are booked through October. Will this really be their last show in America? Only time will tell.
Words by Robert Shepyer
Photos by Albert Licano
