As far as my diary is concerned, on the 28th of March 1981 SPK released their debut LP "Information Overload Unit" on their own Side Effekts Imprint. It was Dave Mutch's idea to dedicate the whole two hours of this programme to the sound of S.P.K.
The album has been a great inspiration for us both. I remember hearing SPK for the first time and it being exactly the sound I was looking for. Back in 1979 I was listening to a lot of electronic / D.I.Y. music ... steering away from the bass/drums/guitar 'punk + new wave' bands (although I still had time for them) and listening to more electronic stuff. Ultravox's "System Of Romance", Cabaret Voltaire's "Extended Play", Tubeway Army's debut LP, Throbbing Gristle, The Door And The Window, Rough Trade Records releases etc. I used to write to bands/labels back in those days too and I remember getting a letter from Industrial Records recommending I wrote to a chap called Graeme T'uatara who had just moved over (from Germany I think) and was about to release a single on their label. He was living with Peter Christopherson at the time and his band were called Surgical Penis Klinik. I wrote and there started a correspondence with Graeme. He mailed me a copy of his "No More" 7" EP and that was it! The sound came from nowhere, I had never heard such power, such noise before. The rhythmic pulsing noise generators, the swirling guitar, the German vocals ... just what I needed to hear at that point in time. A year or so earlier I had bought a copy of Throbbing Gristle's "Second Annual Report" ... the sensation was the same.
I never got to see SPK live until 1983 and their UK "Metal Dance" tour. The classic line-up of Graeme, Sinan, Derek Thompson and John Murphy. Dave Kenny was the live engineer on the tour. It was after the gig at Manchester Hacienda that I decided I was going to follow the tour and Graeme invited me to be their 'roadie'. (Saving on admission and buying beer).
The same happened again the following year on the "Junk Funk" tour, this time I did a lot of babysitting whilst SPK sound checked. The last time I saw Graeme and Sinan was in 1984 at the 'infamous riot gig' at the ICA in London. It was a very tense evening and it was my job to look after the equipment (Fairlight Synthesizer) whilst the riot was taking place.
So here is two hours of SPK. "Information Overload Unit" in full and side one of "Leichenschrei". Also "Germanik", the first SPK track I heard (I think) and "Slogun" from their debut EP "Factory".
Please take a listen :
https://www.mixcloud.com/muhsteve/muhmur-radio-soundart-radio-broadcast-28-march-2019/
Playlist :
01: SPK : "John" (Theraputic/Adverse Recordings) 2012.
02: SPK : "Emantion Machine R.Gie 1916" (Side Effects) 1981.
03: SPK : "Suture Obsession" (Side Effects) 1981.
04: SPK : "Macht Schrecken" (Side Effects) 1981.
05: SPK : "Berufsverbot" (Side Effects) 1981.
06: SPK : "Slogun" (Side Effects) 1979.
07: SPK : "Ground Zero:Infinity Dose" (Side Effects) 1981.
08: SPK : "Stammheim Torturkammer" (Side Effects) 1981.
09: SPK : "Retard" (Side Effects) 1981.
10: SPK : "Epilept:Convulse" (Side Effects) 1981.
11: SPK : "Kaltbruchig Acideath" (Side Effects) 1981.
12: SPK : "Germanik" (Side Effects) 1981.
13: SPK : "Genetik Transmission" (Side Effects) 1983.
14: SPK : "Post-Mortem" (Side Effects) 1983.
15: SPK : "Desolation" (Side Effects) 1983.
16: SPK : "Napalm/Terminal Patient" (Side Effects) 1983.
17: SPK : "Cry From The Sanatorium" (Side Effects) 1983.
18: SPK : "Baby Blue Eyes" (Side Effects) 1983.
19: SPK : "Israel" (Side Effects) 1983.
20: SPK : "Internal Bleeding" (Side Effects) 1983.
21: SPK : "Chamber Musik" (Side Effects) 1983.
22: SPK : "Culturcide" (Side Effects) 1983.
23: SPK : "A Heart That Breaks (In No Time Or Place)" (Walter Ulbricht Schallfollen) 1983.
24: SPK : "Invocation" (Nettwerk) 1987.
25: SPK : "White Island" (Nettwerk) 1987.
26: SPK : "Kambuja" (Nettwerk) 1987.
27: SPK : "Flesh & Steel" (Elektra) 1985.
28: Graeme Revell : "Balinese Twilights" (Musique Brut) 1986.
Tracks #2-#5 + #7-#11 from "Information Overload Unit" LP.
Tracks #13-#21 from "Leichenschrei" LP.
Track #22 from "Dekompositiones" 12"EP.
Track #23 from "Auto Da Fe" LP.
Tracks #24-#25 from "Gold And Poison" LP.
Track #26 from "Off The Deep End" 12"
Track #27 from "Machine Age Voodoo" LP.
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some thoughts ...about "industrial music"...
ReplyDelete"...Industrial music for industrial people. ..You get what you deserve. Or do you?...Truth and hope have no boundaries, no set style, they are implicit most clearly in the way you choose to live..." (G. P-Orridge, liner notes on "TG CD1", 1986)
"...the concern of industrial music was to find an adequate response to a post-collapse society, a society that had yet to understand how quite empty its core had become..."(Brian Duguid, in: EST (web-magazine))
"...I like Radiohead, some Coldplay, and I really like what Bjork does as well. I listen to a lot of electronic stuff, mostly the laidback, chill out, British and French acts. That's merely for pleasure and everything else is for analyzing..." (Graeme Revell, interview, ca. 2005)
those were the days, when we payed a visit to the SPK performance (1982, Wiesbaden, Germany), asked them (Sinan/Graeme) for their permission to publish (some songs of) the recorded show on our own (cassette) label and they agreed. thanx again + hats off!!