SPK

Formed in Sydney in 1978, SPK arose from a meeting between New Zealand-born Graeme Revell and Neil Hill, both employed at Callan Park psychiatric hospital, whose shared interest in the German radical Marxist collective Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv gave the group its name and conceptual starting point. Their debut album Information Overload Unit (1981) and its follow-up Leichenschrei (1982) combined metal percussion, tape manipulation, and confrontational noise to produce some of the most extreme industrial music of the era. Later lineups moved toward electronic dance and world music before Revell dissolved the group in 1988 to pursue film composition.