Cotton Panic! at the Manchester International Festival to 15 July, focuses on how the American Civil War resulted in a cotton famine for Lancashire’s mills and the workers’ solidarity with the slaves of the American south.
Stephen, lecturer in the university’s School of Media, produced a sound track of original material and used modular and analogue synthesisers to make electronic versions of sounds of looms and mills.
The narrative is based on people’s testimonies or traditional weavers and workers’ songs and stories of slavery.
Stephen was a founder member of , the Sheffield band which had its first releases on Rough Trade and Factory Records in 1978 and continued under the name until 1996.
Cabaret Voltaire played and released music around the world, producing countless records, film and TV soundtracks and had videos exhibited at MOMA in New York. Stephen also ran a number of record labels and promotion companies, worked as a radio producer and presenter as well as being a music journalist.