Britain lost one of its iconic electronic artists this month. Richard H. Kirk—founding member of Cabaret Voltaire—passed at the age of 65 on September 21. The Sheffield-born artist left behind a legacy of pioneering electronic post-punk that Mute Records, which released several of Kirk's albums, described as "towering" in a statement released after his death.

Inspired by the English rock band Roxy Music and Brian Eno's "non-musical" approach to instrumentation, Kirk pioneered Cabaret Voltaire's experimental use of synthesisers, tape loops and effects units, which influenced the scuzzy punk and proto-techno that emanated from the UK throughout the 1980s. In addition to guiding the outfit’s challenging—and sometimes confrontational—DIY style, Kirk maintained a prolific solo career. Throughout the '80s and '90s, the artist made music under dozens of aliases including Bit Crackle, Destructive Impact, Dr Xavier, Wicky Wacky and Sweet Exorcist, all of which navigated influences from dub, industrial and mutant, skewered pop.

According to Sheffield-based techno artist John Shima, a contemporary of Kirk's, the artist was a local legend: "He really had what we called a Sheffield sound: an industrial lo-fi vibe but with energy and purpose," he said. "In his music you could hear the dark and dirty steel factories of Tinsley and the old derelict cutlers of Neepsend. If you saw a record with his name on it, you simply bought it without even listening to it." Below are five selections that represent the artist's innovative and genre-spanning body of work, from early Cabaret Voltaire to his solo project Sandoz.

Cabaret Voltaire - "Treated Drum Machine" (1974 or 1975)

Cabaret Voltaire was upfront about the influence Dada exerted on their work—their name is a reference to the Zurich nightclub where many of the original Dadaist happenings took place in 1916. The outfit's early- and mid-'70s musical experiments were pulled straight from the postmodernist Dadaist music genre. Many of these more experimental, assemblage-style recordings went unreleased, but in 2003, Mute Records's Methodology compilation made them available to hear for the first time.

The entire Methodology anthology documents the sound experiments that Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson recorded to tape between 1974 and 1978. Among fascinating spoken word cut-ups, Burroughs-esque musique-concrete and solo analogue excursions on the EMS Synthi AKS synthesiser is "Treated Drum Machine." Recorded to an open-reel tape deck in Chris Watson's Sheffield loft, the song features a looped drum rhythm processed through a highly resonant filter. The sound was a precursor to modern electronica, featuring clave and bongo polyrhythms layered over distorted FM synths. It's no exaggeration to place "Treated Drum Machine" in a sonic space thirty years later than when it was recorded.

Cabaret Voltaire - "The Set Up" (Rough Trade 1978)

After Cabaret Voltaire moved out of Chris Watson's attic and into the Sheffield live music scene, they signed to indie label Rough Trade, who released their debut four-track EP Extended Play in 1978. The release's showpiece, "The Set Up," is driven by the same brand of eight-note guitar riffs that powers much of New York post-punk and revivalist British psych. In '70s New York, Alan Vega and Martin Rev refined this sound as Suicide, and the blueprint would be further developed in the British Midlands by Spacemen 3. The Cab's Sheffield iteration is raw and industrial, like its decaying steel industry backdrop.

The track features raga-like repetition and a modal-sounding scale, while incessant guitar takes on the role of the tambura, a long-necked plucked stringed instrument in traditional Indian drone music. The song also pulls from Jamaican dub, showcasing echo-treated vocals that sound as if they've been taken straight from King Tubby's mixing console. Mixed over the top of these disparate genres are vocals that sound as if they could be emanating from the burgeoning cassette tape culture of Germany's early industrial synthwave scene.

Cabaret Voltaire - "Walls Of Jericho" (Rough Trade 1981)

By the early-'80s, Cabaret Voltaire was at the vanguard of an emergent post-punk electronica scene alongside groups like Throbbing Gristle. Theirs was a DIY punk subculture for the technological age. The rock-n-roll template of drums, guitar, bass and vocals was replaced by drum machines and cheap portable synthesisers processed through a host of guitar pedals: phasers, tape echoes, distortion and filters.

"Walls Of Jericho" is a paragon of this budding style. A haunting off-key synth backing track hints at the new-romantic direction that synth pop bands such as Ultravox, Human League and Visage would take around this time. But the song's overall sonic signature is far more experimental and off-kilter than what would be released by these groups. A rock-n-roll drum pattern plays out underneath heavily processed eighth notes punctuated by bursts of electronic conga fills. The vocals are metallic and delayed, coming in and out of the backing track like a shadow. The track has a hypnotic effect, eventually opening into a Kraftwerk-like synth line that presages the electro boom that would appear just a few months later.

Sweet Exorcist - "Testone" (Warp 1989)

Sweet Exorcist was a collaboration between Richard H. Kirk and Sheffield DJ Richard Barratt (AKA Parrot). Their name was taken from a 1974 Curtis Mayfield album. Their project had a heavy funk influence that showed another side of Richard H. Kirk's eclectic arsenal of musical inspiration. It's hard to convey the mayhem this piece of Sheffield bleep caused at large raves in 1989 and 1990.

John Shima recalls: "I first heard 'Testone' at a warehouse party in Sheffield. As soon as those bleeps came in you knew it was a future classic. It just took the atmosphere up a notch." Most DJs would tease the track in by playing its famous sample intro, which was taken from the UFO landing scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The track is sparse, featuring a dirge-like synth motif and various dubbed-out percussive elements. Claps and hi-hats eventually give way to a minimal but deep bassline, a nod to Kirk's Jamaican dub influence. The track was huge at events like the Notting Hill Caribbean Carnival.

Sandoz - "King Dread" (Soul Jazz 1998 - Rel. 2002.)

Traces of dub can be heard all the way back to Richard H. Kirk's earliest productions. With his Sandoz project, which started in 1992, he would indulge himself with more overt dubwise releases. Soul Jazz Records picked up "King Dread" for release in 2002, four years after it was made.

The song is a hybrid of dancehall-era electronic percussion and processed acoustic drums. Spoken word snippets come in and out of a jerky rhythm while a resonant stab takes the place of the off-beat guitar found in most roots tracks. A beautiful bubbling synth riff enters midway while the rhythm is augmented with a trumpet and metallic agogô percussion.