[2] After the split of Siouxsie and the Banshees in 1996, Severin created his own label RE: and released several instrumental albums via his official website.

[4] On a Sunday afternoon in 1971, he discovered German rock band Can thanks to a schoolfriend's elder brother in the army who was stationed in Hamburg.

[6] His favourite writers when he was a teenager, were William Burroughs and Jean Genet amongst others: he said, "Since I was very young I’ve always felt the need to retreat into my head and scratch around the rim of my imagination to shut out the trivia and carelessness of the world outside".

He was a full contributor to the band's musical output from the first release: the B-side "Voices" to the top 10 single "Hong Kong Garden" was a Severin lyric.

Altered Images had toured as a support act for Siouxsie and the Banshees and Severin produced their first two singles "Dead Pop Stars" and "A Day's Wait".

When the record company realized that "Happy Birthday" had a commercial potential, they asked Martin Rushent to re-record it at the last minute.

Severin then played bass again with the Cure for a one-off live TV appearance on BBC's Riverside in January 1983, for a rendition of the song "Siamese Twins".

Though Smith did sing on a few tracks, the featured vocalist is Jeanette Landray – a friend of Banshee drummer Budgie who was at the time involved in progressing a musical relationship with Siouxsie under the Creatures banner.

The use of keyboards and synthesizers, as well as the inclusion of instrumental only tracks, were also an early pointer to Severin's post Banshee musical output.

Severin's post-Banshees output was the Visions of Ecstasy soundtrack,[13] created for the Nigel Wingrove short film interpretation of the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila.

The four parts written by Severin for the soundtrack, "Sphere", "Come Deliver Us", "Skin Crawl" and "Transverberation of the Heart", formed the basis of his first post-Banshees release.

The origins for this instrumental album were as far back as 1993, when Severin wrote some tracks for Brazilian Theatre Company "Os Satyros" production of Lautréamont's Chants of Maldoror.

After losing and regaining contact with the group, Severin composed further pieces for the 1998 production Os Cantos des Maldoror.

That same year, Severin had been invited to be musical director for the Canadian dance company "Holy Body Tattoo" on CIRCA – described as a 70-minute multimedia "celebration of the sensual forces of submission and control" – a postmodern deconstruction of the tango that interwove film footage by William Morrison and original music by Severin, Warren Ellis and cult cabaret trio The Tiger Lillies.

Severin's third RE: release, The Woman in the Dunes was specially commissioned by Shakti and the Vasanta Mala dance company to accompany the stage production of the Kōbō Abe novel of the same name.

The only vocal included is "I Put a Spell on You"; a version of the Screaming Jay Hawkins classic sung by Jarboe (ex Swans).

[15] The film contained four tracks that Severin collaborated on with his wife and songwriting partner Arban, under the name "Darling Hate".

In 2005, Severin released another album based on a soundtrack originally commissioned by the Indo/Japanese performer Shakti in August 2003 for her interpretation of the story of Beauty and the Beast.

As it was commissioned to accompany a dance production, the titles and timing of each individual part was already decided upon by Shakti, who also suggested the theme for each piece.

This method of working was renewed for the following project, the soundtrack for director Paul Burrow's psychological thriller "Nature Morte" (Still Life).

The album is a recording of his soundtrack for a 1930 silent movie by Jean Cocteau which was screened alongside his live performance at Montreal's Fantasia festival.

[22] That year, Severin also composed a score to Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr;[13] it was his second collaboration with the label Cold Spring.

In 2019, a 23 minute track titled 23 Wounds Of Julius Caesar (reincarnation) was dedicated to the memory of Jhon Balance (co-founder of the group Coil) and Peter Christopherson (of Throbbing Gristle).