Dead Voices On Air

Mark Spybey started his career in the North-East of England with Zoviet France in the late eighties before moving to Vancouver. It was here that Dead Voices On Air were formed. He also worked under the name Propeller and was an original member of Download, that included members of Skinny Puppy. Spybey was the voice of perhaps their most successful release, “The Eyes of Stanley Pain,” in 1996.

Spybey is a prolific collaborator. Perhaps his most significant honour was being asked to be part of the late CAN guitarist Michael Karoli’s band Sofortkontakt! and appearing at the Can 30th anniversary shows in 1999. Spybey also toured in 1998 with Michael as part of legendary late CAN vocalist Damo Suzuki’s Network.

Spybey has recorded, toured and played live with numerous collaborators including Graham Lewis (Wire), Faust, Michael Rother (Neu!) and Dieter Moebius (Cluster), members of The Legendary Pink Dots, Jarboe (Swans), Simon Fisher-Turner, Lee Scratch Perry, KK Null, Snowbeasts, James Plotkin (Flux, Old, Scorn), Robert Hampson (Loop/Main), Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten), Darryl Neudorf and Sugarpill (Abintra), Not Breathing, Pigface, Martin Atkins, Spasm, and Genesis P Orridge. He has worked with a number of record companies, including Kranky, Nettwerk, Invisible, Cold Spring, Soleilmoon and most recently Re:Mission Entertainment and Emergency Hearts.

Spybey was part of the band Beehatch with the late Phil Western of Download, and works with founding member of Zoviet France and Rapoon mainstay Robin Storey as Reformed Faction. He has continued to play live, collaborate and to release work. Lots of work, including “Piss Frond” (“the most cohesive product I could ever imagine,” Ink Nineteen).

Village Voice referred to Dead Voices On Air as an almost medieval drone: “If most ambient is the laudanum of the new fin de siècle, then Dead Voices on Air are the absinthe.” Spybey continues to make music with real instruments; rhythms cultivated by hand and the usual array of grainy sounds and effected vocals.

“Spybey works hard at his art so you don’t have to: rather, as the listener, the participant, the absorber, it’s more important you ignore such now pat genre appellations as ‘industrial’, ‘ambient’, ‘soundscape’, et al, and instead gorge deeply on a wriggling, prickly, sometimes confrontational puzzle box of sounds.” Darren Bergstein

In 2022 Emergency Hearts published a book of musical memoirs by Spybey called Explicit in Purpose. In the spring of 2023 Spybey teamed up with several old friends from his home town to form DADU. They have released two albums and have played live under the name :Dead Voices on Air:Dadu:. Nathan Jamiel of Denver band The Drood and Stephen Weatherall from Dadu have become established members of the band, significantly contributing to the last two albums and playing live with Spybey on a series of concerts in the USA in the fall of 2025.

On Re:Mission Entertainment, Dead Voices On Air has released :snowbeasts: dead voices on air: and —-X—- with Snowbeasts, The Camel Corps and Other Stories with Jochen Arbeit, Pennine with Xqui, :jamiel:spybey:, SILENCE, MELT AND MOURN and mothcomma.

Re:Mission Entertainment also runs the official Dead Voices On Air shop, with records, the Explicit in Purpose book and merch.

Official DVOA shopmothcomma