For nearly four decades, Dead Voices on Air has occupied a peculiar territory between industrial music, abstraction, improvisation, and the frayed edges of song. Mark Spybey has spent that time following ideas wherever they lead, accumulating a body of work connected less by fixed genre than by a willingness to pull recorded music apart and discover what might live inside its seams. His latest album, Mothcomma, continues that restless history.
Released worldwide through Re:Mission Entertainment on July 17th, Mothcomma began taking shape almost immediately after Dead Voices on Air returned from its 2025 US tour. Recording was divided between the Tees Valley in North East England and Lafayette, Colorado, with studio work and remote sessions allowing distance itself to become part of the process. Spybey was joined by Nathan Jamiel of Denver’s The Drood and DADU’s Stephen Weatherall, both of whom have become established members of the group after contributing extensively to the previous two albums and joining Spybey for concerts across the United States last autumn.
Across Mothcomma, recognisable structures periodically surface before dissolving into stranger forms. Pas de Chasse moves with cinematic unease, while Eye Exhaust gathers layers into a dense, unsettled mass. For the Rush of Black Tar draws tension from repetition and texture, and the title track reaches toward something brighter and more expansive. Geography, memory and spontaneous decisions pass continually through the record, giving its disparate pieces an internal logic without sanding down their rougher edges.
Spybey’s history offers plenty of precedent for such open-ended work. He began his career with Zoviet France in North East England during the late 1980s before relocating to Vancouver and founding Dead Voices on Air. He subsequently became an original member of Download alongside members of Skinny Puppy, providing the voice for 1996’s The Eyes of Stanley Pain. His collaborations have since included Graham Lewis of Wire, Faust, Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius, Jarboe, Lee Scratch Perry, James Plotkin, Robert Hampson, Jochen Arbeit, Martin Atkins and Genesis P-Orridge.
Among the more remarkable chapters came through CAN guitarist Michael Karoli, who invited Spybey into Sofortkontakt! for CAN’s 30th anniversary concerts in 1999. A year earlier, Spybey had toured with Karoli as part of Damo Suzuki’s Network. His memoir, Explicit in Purpose, was published by Emergency Hearts in 2022, while recent years have also found him working with old friends in DADU.
Alongside Mothcomma, the official Dead Voices on Air shop has now opened, bringing together releases and merchandise from Spybey’s extensive catalogue. The store includes CDs, vinyl, cassettes, autographed copies, out-of-print material, collaborations, side projects, new shirts and copies of Mothcomma. Some stock ships from the United States, while other items are dispatched directly by Spybey from the UK. The first 40 orders also receive a 3×3 Dead Voices On Air logo vinyl sticker.
Get the merch here.
Listen to Mothcomma below and order the album here.
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