As we know only too well, appearances can be deceptive and it was only when your reviewer checked the small print here that he realised the deranged photo booth shot adorning "Earlier/ Later" was in fact a self-portrait of RICHARD.H.KIRK in 1974. Initial impressions suggested an on-the-run mugshot of an escaped member of the Baader-Meinhof gang rather than Sheffield's inimitable sonic professor himself.
Bu then Kirk's music has also been party to fascinating, chameleonic change over the years, and while he will inevitably always be known as one of the two driving forces behind the seminal Cabaret Voltaire, his solo career is also a remarkable thing, and thus such a self-explanatory anthology set (subtitled "Unreleased Projects" 1974 - 1989) is often visionary and always gripping.
Presented in anything but chronological form, CD1 here is actually "Later" and in truth the bulk of the unmissable gear is collected inside this first 70 minutes. Perhaps inevitably, the sea changes in the Cabs' career can be earmarked in Kirk's own work too and this CD kicks off with "Never Lose Your Shadow" from '82: roughly the cusp of the Cabs shifting from the weird post-punk dub'n'cut-ups of the Rough Trade years to hard-edged, sequencer-based dance terrorism of their Virgin period, and both elements feature in this nagging, claustrophobic track, with its' repetitive "the blind lead the blind" chorus.
Elsewhere, the earlier sound collage approach adopted by the Cabs in the post-Watergate world is harked back to on '79's "Narcotics Rap (It Stinks In Here)", while 1985's "On Fire" features the harrying, almost industrial funky discipline Kirk and Mallinder would employ on "The Covenant, The Sword & The Arm Of The Lord."
All of these are fine, but even better are the tracks when Kirk strikes out for pastures new. "Numero Uno Baby" for instance, reprises and updates the fractious sampladelic funk of David Byrne & Brian Eno's "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts", while "Digital Globe" presents a warmer, wittery, neo-African feel closer to Kirk's Sandoz project; "Do As I Do" is smooth and sophisticated and the playful "Latin/ MYBM" (1989) revels in the cutting edge house sounds then beginning to spill from Detroit and the obligatory tinkly piano breaks you'd expect from the genre.
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As you'll probably have gathered by now, CD2 meanwhile, features the primarily "Earlier" tracks, combining a few cool offcuts from Kirk's work at the Cabs' Western Works studio with a series of murky, but generally intriguing home-recorded works fashioned by Kirk during 1974-75, with the same primitive equipment used by the Cabs in their formative years and documented on the "Methodology" Box Set.
Admittedly, some of these - like the slow, brooding "Radio Silence" and the looped ambienta of "Cosmic Override 1" are only thumbnail sketches, but Kirk would within a few years take the likes of these and the warped, outer-space groove of "Au Service De La Revolution" and the bloops'n' reel to reel meltdown of "Kinshasa Express" and fashion the likes of the Cabs' awesome early singles "Silent Command" and "Seconds Too Late" from these early windows on another world. Besides, even these primitive visions are fragile and exciting and even better when combined with a few choice later things like "International Smashface Detective Theme", which allows Kirk the freedom to indulge his soundtrack interests with a spare, noir-ish exercise that's all shadows and long coats. Satisfying in a word.
So, while "Earlier/ Later" may be an extensive collection of primarily unreleased material, it's quite probably Electronica's equivalent of Bob Dylan's amazing "Bootleg Series" and (again) adds credence to Richard H.Kirk's standing as one of the UK and the world's primary sonic pioneers. He even makes looking like a member of The Dickies seem cool in the back cover photo, which is in itself quite a feat.
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