Dark, intense and melodic electro with industrial elements.

7 MP3 Songs
ELECTRONIC: Electro, ELECTRONIC: Industrial

Show all album songs: Disbehave Ep Songs


Details:
Based in London and centered around the music of Roi Robertson, Roi started Mechanical Cabaret in 1999 when he made his first demo CD âMalevolent Maladies'. He played his first live show in October that year at Gossips in Soho, London for the club night 'Electric Dreams' where a lack of actual band members and determination to play live meant he got two friends to mime on synth over the sequenced and programmed music whilst he sang 'just so it looked good'!

Unhappy with having to resort to employing people to mime playing synths while he sang at his live shows and frustrated at the apparent lack of decent synth players around, fate would have it that Roi was introduced shortly after this gig to Tobi Chandler, a DJ rather than a keyboard player (at the time) who accepted Roi's invitation to join him on stage at gigs to make lots of weird, random noises along to the music by twiddling knobs on and hitting an old drum synthesizer from the 1970's which Roi had.

They played a lot around London with this extremely minimal set up before Roi and Tobi were then joined by Bruce Lovelock, a visual artist and long time friend of Roi's, who Roi invited to come along to be slide show projectionist for them. Bruce would show slides of his artwork during these shows and also various 'challenging' and 'unsettling' images he'd made! Eventually Bruce went on to play live synthbass onstage instead, Tobi gradually taking up playing live lead synth whilst Roi continued on vocals, all the while developing his voice and own distinctive style of stage performance.

In 2001 they toured the UK with friends Katscan and Squid. Of particular note amongst the gigs that Mechanical Cabaret played during these early years, in April 2001 they were lucky enough to support Fad Gadget at his 'comeback' concert after 15 years away, at the Astoria 2 in London. Fad Gadget, a.k.a. Frank Tovey, was a major influence on not only Roi but many electronic musicians and bands since he began in 1979, and Roi eventually became an aquaintance of Frank's during what was sadly to become the last year of Frank's life. (*In tribute to Frank and his music, Roi recorded a version of the Fad Gadget song 'I Discover Love' which he later released, and it's always a popular track with audiences when they choose to perform it live at their gigs.

In June 2002 Roi released his first CD âWe Have An Agenda' on his own label Soiled Records. A year in the making, this album showcased the variety in style, sound and particular individuality that Roi has in his music, all with a distinctively British flavour throughout. The song âNothing Special' from the CD was picked up on by some American film-makers and used as part of the Metropolis Records soundtrack for the film âGypsy 83' which saw a cinematic release stateside and gained critical acclaim, along with something of a cult following...

In 2003, Mechanical Cabaret by now had their very own cult following! The music had spread around the electronic music underground across the world and fans would write from far and wide telling of their love for them. At this point they played live support to bands such as Sheep On Drugs and The Damned, and they also toured the UK again, this time supporting Sigue Sigue Sputnik along with another band called Greenhaus. Later that year, Roi contributed lyrics and vocals to a dance track called 'Try Harder' which features on the album 'Another Life' by Greenhaus - Steve Bellamy from Greenhaus later went on to work with Roi on some of the the recording, engineering and production of the second Mechanical Cabaret album 'Product For Your Insecurity'.

Mechanical Cabaret were one of the very first bands to perform at the now infamous âNag Nag Nag' electro club-night in London, run by the equally infamous Jonny Slut (Specimen/ Batcave/ Atomizer) where they played to packed out audiences several times. At the end of 2003 Roi co-started a club-night too, along with DJ's Mark Moore (S'Express) and Frankie D, called Electrogogo, held at a beautiful old venue in London's Soho called Madame JoJo's.

In 2004, whilst continuing to play live shows around London and the UK, Roi recorded the double A-sided single âCheap And Nasty/See Her Smile' which eventually came out towards the end of that year on Mark Moore's Umami Records as a 12â, 7â and CD, along with a world exclusive, a Nag Nag Nag Remix of Cheap And Nasty, the first ever official Nag Nag Nag remix released, done by Jonny Slut and his band Atomizer, featuring fellow Nag DJ Phil OK. It also offered several extra tracks too, including live favourite 'Nothing In Life Thats Worth Having Will Not Be Taken Away'. The single helped considerably to raise Mechanical Cabaret's profile, especially around the club scene in London where it even got into the Top 10 of several DJs playlists, published both in magazines such as London's main Gay culture mag 'QX' and on numerous sites on the internet, including that of one of Roi's favourite ever stars (who also DJ's) Mr Marc Almond!

Mechanical Cabaret started getting some major support slots in 2005, playing with the legendary Suicide, Doug McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb), Mesh, T. Raumschmiere and even Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk. During this time, Roi was working on material for the second Mechanical Cabaret album which was to come to light in spring 2006 when he finally released the âProduct For Your Insecurity' CD in April that year.

Along with the new album came an offer from electro-pop legends Mesh to support them on their European Tour that spring, promoting their excellent new album 'We Collide'. Certainly an opportunity not to be missed, Roi jumped at the chance to play with them, playing shows in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland. Thankfully it paid off well for Mechanical Cabaret; they went down a storm with the audiences around these countries and made many new fans along the way, also attracting the interest of Ingo and Corinna from Conzoom Promotions, who also promote Erasure and Client in Germany, who offered to promote the band over there. They promptly put together a German language Mechanical Cabaret website and started spreading the word about Mechanical Cabaret around the country which, it turned out, was shortly to contribute to a very welcome outcome...

In 2006 Roi was asked to remix 'See Her Smile' for the 5th edition of the hugely popular compilation CD series called Advanced Electronics, and Roi's 'Radiophonic Mix' of what has become practically the bands 'anthem'(!) amongst their fans was released that autumn. To bring the year to a close, Mechanical Cabaret went on to headline a huge annual party in Milan, Italy, based on the music of Depeche Mode (another big influence on Roi's musical output) as part of the promotion for 'Bright Lights/Dark Room', a compilation released on Cryonica Records of Depeche Mode B-side cover versions, which features the Mechanical Cabaret recording of a Depeche Mode song called 'Set Me Free', the B-side of their single 'Master and Servant' from 1984. It went incredibly well, the band ending up playing to over 2,000 people, the most they'd ever played to at this point; Roi even got the crowd singing along at the top of their voices to a surprise cover version of DM's 'A Question Of Time' which turned out to be very helpful of them when Roi's *microphone came unplugged at one point whilst he was singing!

(*Not for the first time during a Mechanical Cabaret show mind you - Roi's onstage tomfoolery takes it's toll on their equipment occasionally, as anyone else having played with him can certainly testify.)

In January 2007 they finished off the European tour with Mesh in Germany (this time in the freezing cold though!), also playing with Client on the UK dates. Roi remixed the Mesh track âStep By Step' from their âWe Collide' album and also âXerox Machine' by Client, for the compilation CD âElektrisch 2' which came out in February that year. Also during 2007 they went on to play with Apoptygma Berserk and Covenant in London, and they toured the UK with the wonderful Canadian Electro-Industrial innovators Frontline Assembly, too.

More recently, Roi remixed the song 'Like A Bird' from the album 'Synthetik' by long standing Mute Records' artists Komputer (formerly known as I Start Counting, and Fortran 5), which was released in September 2007 by Mute as a 7" single and is also currently available as a download from iTunes.

This year also brought with it enough extra good fortune to mean that Roi has now, after 7 years of countless gigs, self financed releases and many ups and downs, ended up signing to a record label in Germany - Hamburg based Major Records, home also to Ladytron and IAMX - who are about to release an EP/single of the Mechanical Cabaret song âDisbehave' from the last album, on December 14th. Containing 40 minutes of music and featuring 6 remixes of the title track, plus a new recording Roi has made of 'When We Go, We Go Together' one of the most popular songs from 'We Have An Agenda', this will be available as a Limited Edition CD and also as a download from iTunes as well.

In November this year, Roi recorded a cover version of 'When Do I Get To Sing My Way?' by one of his all time favourite bands, Sparks, for a compilation album of Sparks covers which is now on general release. The compilation is called 'Rainbow Over The Freeway' and is in aid of The Rainbow Trust children's charity, who provide practical and emotional support to families who have a child with life-threatening or terminal illness. It also features Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra, The Autons and Imbeciles and the Poison Umbrella, amongst many others. Mechanical Cabaret played a 45 minute headline show for the official release party of this album at Madame JoJo's on November 29th.

Roi is currently working hard writing and recording what will soon become the brand new Mechanical Cabaret album, to be released on Major in 2008!