Cabaret Voltaire’s founder member and ‘towering genius’ Richard H. Kirk has died aged 65, his record label has confirmed
Cabaret Voltaire found member Richard H Kirk has died, aged 65.
His death was confirmed by record label Mute, in a statement. The poignant announcement labelled the musician as a “towering creative genius”.
The statement read: “It is with great sadness that we confirm our great and dear friend, Richard H Kirk has passed away.
“Richard was a towering creative genius who led a singular and driven path throughout his life and musical career.
“We will miss him so much. We ask that his family are given space at this time.”
A cause of death has not yet been announced.
Cabaret Voltaire was originally active between 1973-1994 with Richard a founding member alongside Chris Watson until 1981 and Stephen Mallinder until 1994.
The group then took a break for 20 years until Richard returned to the band in 2014 as the sole remaining member for a performance at Berlin’s Atonal festival.
He released a new album, Shadow Of Fear, in 2020 which was the first from the group in 26 years.
Created just before the coronavirus pandemic, Richard said at the time about the record: “The album was finished just as all the weirdness was starting to kick in.”
He continued: “The current situation didn’t have much of an influence on what I was doing – all the vocal content was already in place before the panic set in – but maybe due to my nature of being a bit paranoid there are hints in there about stuff going a bit weird and capturing the current state of affairs.”