Micro-Phonies (album)


Micro-Phonies is the sixth full-length studio album by British electronic band Cabaret Voltaire. Released 29 October 1984, the album was the group's most mainstream release to date, with the singles "Sensoria" and "James Brown" gaining popularity, especially the former, due to the music video finding MTV airplay.
The album sees Cabaret Voltaire continuing to change, pursuing the more electro and synthpop-oriented direction they had started shifting towards on The Crackdown.

Production and release

It was co-produced with British engineer Flood.
The songs "Sensoria" and "Blue Heat" get alternative 12" mixes on the CD version of Micro-Phonies.

Reception

The Rolling Stone Album Guide gave Micro-Phonies a more positive review, compared to its predecessors in the discography and called the duo's "most exhilarating work", highlighting the improvement in Cabaret Voltaire's ability to "convert its interest in static structures into anything resembling conventional dance music", although with limited melody. The guide praised its accessibility paired with "menace" of their previous records, noticing a pop appeal in the songs "Do Right" and "Spies in the Wires", created through the chemistry between Stephen Mallinder's vocals and Richard H. Kirk's "churning electronics".
In AllMusic review, Ned Raggett favorably compared Micro-Phonies to the Cabaret Voltaire's previous discography, lauding its invention of "the shadowy, murkier side of industrial/noise experimentation". Raggett singled out the "funky, horn-heavy" song "James Brown", the "gripping" song "Sensoria", and brilliantly subtle "The Operative" as highlights. Raggett saw dub influences scattered throughout the album, in particular on "Digital Rasta". He also appreciated the Mallinder ability to "submerges his vocals into the music rather than calling overt attention to them".

Music video

The music video for "Sensoria" was directed by Peter Care, and attracted airplay on MTV. It was voted Best Video of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1985, and was later procured by the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Legacy

A poster for the album is visible on Ferris Bueller's wall in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Personnel