Description
After releasing more than 90 albums as Dead Voices On Air over the last 30 years, Mark Spybey (ex-Download, Michael Karoli’s Sofortkontakt! etc) teamed up with three old friends in 2023 to record as Dadu. They released a CD in the same year, described by Alan Rider in Outside Left as “a master class in shifting soundscapes,” which immediately sold out and in November, 2024 are set to release a double album “Tutu.”
Anything that pushes and challenges like Dead Voices on Air: Dadu is to be applauded in the bland musical universe we live in. — Alan Rider, Outside Left
Dead Voices On Air have produced some of the most consistently interesting music that I’ve ever heard. — Shift, Japan
Spybey’s manipulation of sound is inspired. — Mike Barnes, Wire
Dead Voices On Air meets and becomes Dadu.
Spybey started his career in the North-East of England with Zoviet France in the late eighties before moving to Vancouver, where he formed Dead Voices On Air and became part of Download, which included members of Skinny Puppy. He then went on to collaborate with a number of artists, becoming a member of CAN guitarist Michael Karoli’s band Sofortkontakt.
Spybey’s collaborators include Damo Suzuki, Faust, Graham Lewis (Wire, He Said), Mick Harris (Scorn, Napalm Death), Jarboe (Swans), Simon Fisher-Turner, KK Null, Legendary Pink Dots, Lee Scratch Perry and Mark Stewart (Pop Group), Coil, Robert Hampson (Loop/ Main), Jochen Arbeit (Einsturzende Neubaten), Pigface and Genesis P Orridge. Spybey was part of the band Beehatch with the late Phil Western of Download and works with Robin Storey, ex-Zoviet France and Rapoon, under the name Reformed Faction. He published a book via the Emergency Hearts label in 2023 about his approach to music making titled, “Explicit in Purpose.”
Dadu features Martin Harvey, Stephen Weatherall and Gary Widdowfield, all of whom were active in the Teesside music scene in the 1980’s. The album veers from frenzied post-punk pop to dark ambient: imagine This Heat meets James Brown in a cement mixer. Real music, made with real instruments, composed largely spontaneously and refined through studio editing. “Tutu” marries the dark ambience of Dead Voices on Air with the powerful, frenetic and, at times, equally joyful and harrowing sounds of Dadu. It features a collaboration with The Commoners Choir from Leeds, conducted by Hoff Whalley of Chumbawamba. It’s a tangled, wriggling, sometimes confrontational puzzlebox of sounds and ideas, enhanced by a sumptuously designed sleeve package that features six art cards, writing and an individualized handmade piece of art.
Limited edition of 110 copies.
TUTU CD One
1. YOUR FAILED STATE
2. LUNARIS
3. INFENESATION
4. CONSUME CONSUME
5. DIE WASCHMASCHINE
6. SPECTOR IS DEAD
7. INCINERATE
8. TO SEE WITH THE EYE OF AN ANGEL
9. ISOLATION TANK
10. METTEUSE
11. SIMULACRA
12. PRHONESIS
13. KOMOREBI
14. ALL TO NO END
15. BARGAIN AT 3
TUTU CD Two
1. LICHT LIGHT-POCKET CLAWS
2. GLASSBLOWER
3. OH YEAH NOH
4. LOW RIDER
5. LUFT WA
6. JEEPSTER
7. SOUP SONG SWITCH
8. TOWARDS YOU IN YOUR SILENCE GLIDE
9. THE LONG GAME
10. WE SHALL OVERCOME THE WORLD THAT WAS
