Another legend of industrial returned to music last year on the VOD Festival, Graeme Revell performed as SPK together with his son Robert. Now they released a single track in March which is meant to show one side of the new project mutation.
Graeme Revell had basically left the music business after he scored the Australian Thriller ‘Dead Calm’ which opened a new and successfull way for him of working in Film Music for movies like ‘Until The End Of The World’, ‘The Crow’, ‘Sin City’, ‘Tomb Raider’, ‘Dare Devil’, ‘Riddick’, ‘The Spawn’, ‘Dune’ and many more.
SPK had ended with the mixed up Nettwerk release of ‘Gold and Poison‘ and a poor but official live album. The backcatalouge of Side Effects / SPK was handed over to Brian Williams who licensed it to Mute in the 1990’s. During the last years various other recordings and reissues appeared, even their controversioal and most commercial ‘Machine Age Voodoo‘ album got an careful and loving remaster.
His long time partner and wife, Sinan who’s not involved any longer gave a rare Interview last year to Maurizio from Chain D.L.K. covering amongst other topics the story of ‘Metal Dance’.
As of now Graeme and their son have established a solid web presence and a basic concept involving two different directions – both are set for official live debuts this year – discover more here.
“SPK has always worked at the fault lines of new technology — from scrap metal and samplers to AI. The outrage is never the point; the diagnosis is.
Industrial culture taught us that humanity has always been hybrid — we are already technological organisms.
The sampler didn’t kill music. The drum machine didn’t erase drummers. They changed the terrain.
AI is simply the contemporary coal face. It isn’t a shortcut or a replacement for artists. It’s an instrument — one that exposes how patriarchy, power and spectacle are already algorithmic.
The real danger isn’t AI in art, but the invisible accumulation of power and money shaping an opaque technology. Perception and desire without scrutiny. By foregrounding it, we reveal the machinery.
If ‘The Last of Men’ provokes discomfort, that’s consistent with SPK’s history. We don’t avoid the technological fire — we step into it and see what it exposes.
AI is not the enemy of art. Unexamined power is.”