Search - Spk :: Gold & Poison

Mmmm??

Hoppy | UK | 04/26/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The first 4 tracks are similar to the MACHINE AGE VOODOO material and only the first 3 are really worth listening to. The rest are either hard work or simply a cacophony but suitably weird as you would expect from SPK. The raw, original METAL DANCE and METAL FIELD are what I remember SPK for, not this I'm afraid."

SPK Re-inventing music to open up boundaries

C. J. Van Hall | Arnhem, The Netherlands | 07/13/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"SPK stands for industrial music and to innovate music and rediscover it. They were never by themselves, and were joined in that industrial world by the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Laibach, Cabaret Voltaire, 23 Skidoo and DAF. Also with these bands/groups one saw a moving towards 'commercialism' round and after 1984. (Chris & Cosey did just that out of the TG group). That was a shock for the rawer material fans from the early 80's. In hindsight some efforts stand up...and others are still down. One of the best live gigs I've ever seen was from the SPK who was thriving towards the metal dance, where in live gigs material from the junkyard was used (I actually took some of it home from the Seaview Ballroom, to do some metal bashing myself, where my Melbourne neighbor reacted by throwing bricks over the fence !!). GOLD AND POISON is a step further down the commercial dancelane, BUT...at the same time one can find a few very melancholic non-easy sound/songs from the impressive Zamia Lehmanni album. What I understood from GOLD AND POISON was, that this record had become a selection to enter the American market. Therefore it became a bit of a mix up, which you start to get used to, but as such is a strange combination. It's like Graeme Revell once answered me personally when asked why he was getting so far off the original track with SPK. 'Why does nobody seem to have a problem with the same things that Cabaret Voltaire and Laibach are doing right now, what's wrong with earning some money with music once ?' (1986/7). One never knows how he got exactly into the filmscore-business. But maybe Graeme Revell is at home in all kind of films, to make sounds and music for. And it is the 'old audience', that seems to have the problem to switch to different mov(i)es. I enjoy this album though, so I seem to be adapting slowly but steadily !"