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SPARK

Swedish EBM act SPARK is possibly one of the most interesting newcomers on the Scandinavian electro stage if you are into really classical - or as some might say ‘out-dated’ - Electronical Body Music. I.e ‘SPARK’ means ‘kick’ in Swedish, and this kicks ass!

Ok, boys and girls, make no mistake about it, this shit is in the true aggressor style of NEP and DAF. And the question that pops to mind is ‘Are Spetsnaz doing lyrics in Swedish now?’, but they’re not. From far out west in Sweden, in a tradition of domestic red-neck-burlesque-rockabilly artist Eddie Meduza SPARK pay musical homage and praise to iced Jägermeister, bodies, sweat and muscle in the pedagogic pay-off song ‘EBM’. Not that this particular approach is exploring any new territory; Pouppée Fabrikk started the Jäger-synth tradition claiming Jägermeister as God's gift to mankind on the album ‘We came to drop bombs’ thirteen years ago. But things have a way to resurface in cycles; and so say I in the case of SPARK. It's the good old fashioned ingredients with today’s mixers. Slightly more elegant due to today's technology; slightly less interesting 'cause it's been iterated ad-nauseam. But it is EBM – so we forgive!

Metal is – apart from the obvious - a main source of inspiration, states SPARK. Ozzy Osbourne once said ‘I never set out to be a businessman. I just wanted to have fun, fuck chicks and do drugs’, and while this initially concerned the rock scene I’d put my money on that it’s more or less true regarding anyone stepping into the synth scene today. 'Cause it's clearly not here the dough flows, is it? And accordingly these guys seem not to care much for that, they seem quite content with the other stuff. They are both in their early thirties and this is, according to Mattias Ziessow, a k a ‘the General’ (music/programming/shouting) and Stefan Brorsson, a k a 'the Commandant’ (song/lyrics/shouting), merely the fruit of their dreams of being a part of the scene together – this is a band between friends. As the main power source apparently is love of EBM from two friendship-Bosticked fanatics – this project can really go in any direction as opposed to the dead ducks on many of the labels . You can tell, both from the music and the musicians themselves; these guys want it, and they want it bad!

“We do it in Swedish mainly because no-one else does EBM that way. We wanted to get an edge and be a little bit different from the rest of the bands”. But fear not, puritans, they're not that different at all. Way back in the late eighties the possibilities of finding new ways to do the same two DAF-tunes kind of ran dry more or less assassinating the genre from a commercial point of view. This however, contradictory as it is, seems to be the very elixir sustaining the life of the EBM zombie, keeping it young in suspended animation, in a cryo tank or at the Tinitus Festival. But this is a pretty vital corpse – this stiff’s really got the beat!

And this is really the edge of Tinitus. Given the bands today, the unfavourable market for ticket sales and the general reluctance towards paying for music at all, it is impressive how Tinitus manages to make a success of booking new-comer acts like SPARK.

But high risk projects have always been the mark of Daniel Jonasson and his Tinitus Crew (which, just for the record, I'm not a member of). “There is no fun in just promoting the major acts. Anyone can do that, those bands practically sell their own tickets. But to ensure longevity of Tinitus and the scene, it is the new bands that one has to rely on. This is however not a walk in the park as most of the audience are so specialized and genre-true that they'd never admit to liking anything new, did their life depend on it.”

On the Tinitus X-mas Mayhem Club Night, December 29:th 2007 you can experience SPARK as a bonus, and although our innate conservatism desperately tries to shrug off any new interpretations of our iconic genre - regardless of the fact that critiques and audience alike scrounge for something generic yet unheard - instead of the usual duck-and-cover-manoeuvre upon the strike of opportunity; try to turn the other cheek and get it full throttle at Tinitus!"

Interview: Morten Solholm
Image: Spark