Mark Spybey is a veteran of the psychic wars that were the 80s and 90s industrial, post-industrial, darkwave, etc. electronic scenes. Having logged hours with latter day Zoviet France and Skinny Puppy offshoot Download, it has always been his solo DVOA project that has yielded the most interesting results. Spybey, like fellow travelers Mick Harris and Justin Broadrick, has usually managed to steer clear of most grand guignol (and cheddar-smelling) aspects of industrial music. From Labrador to Madagascar, the first DVOA since a 2001 live effort, stays the ambient course for the long-running project. Rudderless drones are spiked with bobbing metal percussion and uneasy atmospherics suggesting all manner of phobia. Title tracks “Labrador” feature a warm hand-thrumming drum circle vibe while “Madagascar” is a sky of gunmetal scraped by chrome seagulls. The latter tracks, “Papa Papa Nesh” and “Splay” lapse into a more stock version of menace and threat, turning the clock back a couple of decades. Despite that DVOA sits in an interesting pocket where its weather beaten features render it timeless. Spybey makes no attempts to retool his palette to suit any of the newly mushroomed subgenres of electronics, but new classes have admittedly strayed into the edges of his playground.Invisible
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