‘My first exposure to the genre I call «Dark Cabaret» came in the early 80s, when I bought Marc & the Mamba’s Untitled album (the «Marc» in question is Marc Almond from Soft Cell). It was released in 1982 and a great deal of side two features Marc’s voice against a sparse piano background, occasionaly accompanied by strings. To me, that’s the template for the dark cabaret sound: a passionate voice over an instrumental background calling to mind a Weimar cabaret in 1927 Germany’.

Sam Rosenthal