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Best known as the founder of industrial pioneers
Skinny Puppy,
cEvin Key has been involved with numerous projects since the early 1980s, spanning many genres including new wave, techno, ambient, IDM, and dub. Throughout all of his myriad ventures,
Key has been praised for his inventive approaches to production and composition, including innovative usage of sampling and dense, complex arrangements of rhythm, melody, and distortion. While a member of successful Canadian synth pop group
Images in Vogue, he started
Skinny Puppy as an experimental side project in 1982.
Nivek Ogre became the group's frontman, and the group quickly earned a reputation for their shocking performances and music videos, which often brought attention to issues such as animal testing, as well as their equally confrontational music, which fused industrial, funk, electro, and noise. Albums such as
Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse (1986) and
Too Dark Park (1990) have remained seminal influences on the electro-industrial scene, as well as favorites of the group's rabid cult fan base. During
Skinny Puppy's initial run,
Key formed other projects such as the psychedelic group
the Tear Garden (with
Edward Ka-Spel of
the Legendary Pink Dots) and the experimental collective
Hilt. After
Skinny Puppy broke up in 1995,
Key concentrated on the techno/ambient-influenced
Download and
platEAU projects, in addition to releasing the occasional solo effort, such as 1998's
Music for Cats.
Skinny Puppy reunited in the early 2000s and resumed touring and releasing albums, including 2004's The Greater Wrong of the Right, while many of
Key's other projects remained active, primarily issuing material through independent label Subconscious Communications. During the 2010s,
Key formed experimental dub project
Dubcon with
Ryan Moore (
Twilight Circus), releasing albums such as 2016's
Martian Dub Beacon.
Kevin William Crompton was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He had experimented with synthesizers and drums as a teenager, and had played in a few local bands, but his first full-time gig was as the drummer for Vancouver-based new wave group
Images in Vogue. A successful group in their home country,
Images in Vogue scored hits such as "Lust for Love" (1983) and "Call It Love" (1985), and opened for
Roxy Music and
Duran Duran. Crompton started
Skinny Puppy as an experimental side project in 1982, and Kevin Ogilvie soon became the group's vocalist after the two met at a party. The pair adopted pseudonyms (
cEvin Key and
Nivek Ogre) in order to avoid confusion over having the same first name.
Skinny Puppy's debut recording, a self-released 1984 tape titled Back & Forth, attracted attention from Nettwerk, who released mini-album
Remission that year, followed by full-length
Bites in 1985.
Key left
Images in Vogue, as he felt the group was too commercial, and concentrated on
Skinny Puppy full-time. Joined by additional members such as Dwayne Goettel and engineer
Dave "Rave" Ogilvie, the group were restlessly prolific throughout the '80s and early '90s, averaging an album a year and scoring club and alternative radio hits such as "Dig It" (1986) and "Testure" (1989).
Key formed
the Tear Garden with
Legendary Pink Dots leader
Edward Ka-Spel after the two met in 1985. More psychedelic and sometimes poppier than
Key's main group,
the Tear Garden debuted with a self-titled 1986 EP, followed by 1987's
Tired Eyes Slowly Burning. The project's second album, 1992's
The Last Man to Fly, is often regarded by fans as an overlooked classic.
Key also participated in experimental collective
Hilt (initially known as the Flu) and one-off side projects such as the cinematic
Doubting Thomas (with Goettel) and the Wax Trax!-signed
Cyberaktif (with one-time
Puppy member
Bill Leeb, also of
Front Line Assembly).
Following 1992's
Last Rights,
Skinny Puppy signed with
Rick Rubin's American Recordings and relocated to Malibu, California to record their next album. However, numerous problems within the band delayed the recording of the album, and
Ogre quit the group; after Goettel was found dead of a heroin overdose in 1995, the rest of the band reconvened and finished the album. Issued as
The Process in 1996, it was announced as
Skinny Puppy's final release. Following Goettel's death,
Key took control of Subconscious Communications, a label founded several years earlier by Goettel and
Phil Western. All three musicians had been involved in the experimental electronic collective
Download, which then became
Key's main venture following the dissolution of
Skinny Puppy. Featuring input from musicians like
Mark Spybey (
Dead Voices on Air) and
Genesis P-Orridge (
Throbbing Gristle,
Psychic TV), the project's albums, including
The Eyes of Stanley Pain (1996) and
III (1997), were often much closer to IDM and ambient than industrial.
Key and
Western also formed
platEAU, a druggy techno offshoot which premiered with 1997's Music for Grass Bars. In 1998,
Key released solo album
Music for Cats (which featured appearances by several other
Download contributors), followed by The Ghost of Each Room in 2001. In 2003,
Key and
Ken "Hiwatt" Marshall reworked several tracks recorded during the mid-'80s and released them as
The Dragon Experience.
While still active with many of his side projects and Subconscious Communications,
Key unexpectedly returned to
Skinny Puppy during the early 2000s. The band played a reunion gig at a German Festival in 2000, released the following year as
Doomsday: Back and Forth Series 5: Live in Dresden.
Key then toured as the drummer for
Nivek Ogre's
ohGr solo project, and
Skinny Puppy began recording new material. The Greater Wrong of the Right was released in 2004, and the group continued regularly touring and releasing albums. In 2009,
Key released Zombie Battle 2019!, the debut album from his Japan-inspired solo project BananaSLOTH.
Key and longtime Subconscious associate
Ryan Moore (
Twilight Circus) formed dub project
Dubcon, making their debut with 2013's
U.F.O. Pon di Gullyside, which was followed by
Martian Dub Beacon in 2016. Brap and Forth Vol. 8, a collection of mostly unreleased outtakes and demos from the mid-'80s, was released as a
cEvin Key solo album in 2018. ~ Paul Simpson