Today 45 years ago, on 21 April 1979, British funk-punk mavericks THE POP GROUP released their startling debut LP Y that still sounds spooky, anarchistic, and gloriously
out of the ordinary today.
Single ‘She’s Beyond Good And Evil
ALBUM
Exactly 1 year ago today the band’s charismatic frontman and
renowned dub artist Mark Stewart passed away, aged only 62.
I had the great pleasure of meeting Mark twice and interviewing
him once. He was not only an influencing artist but also a warm-hearted
and down-to-earth person.
Last Saturday the sad news of the passing of 62-year old MARK STEWART
best known as the astounding frontman of experimental post-punk band THE POP GROUP from Bristol who hit the scene back 1977. He also recorded
multiple albums solo and collaborated with lots of other artists.
Their innovative, mercurial, and left politics-infused
debut LP Y is still regarded as a classic album of the era.
The album’s wilful single SHE IS BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
(more than 1 million streams on Spotify) is one of their
unforgettable exploits.
Info: ‘Y in Dub’ is a 9-track collection of heavyweight dub versions that match the
prodigious intensity of their source material. The release reflects the enterprising
originality of the dub and reggae music that inspired The Pop Group, as well as the
legendary ingenuity of their longstanding collaborator Dennis Bovell, recently awarded
an MBE for his services to music, might we add… The original material is submerged and prolonged, shattered, splintered, and sculpted into turbulent, contrasting forms which
deviate from the original tracks in compelling, unexpected ways.
Release: Via Mute on CD and digitally on October 29th, 2021, with the vinyl release
set to follow at a later date due to ongoing worldwide production issues with vinyl.
L to r: Dub expert Dennis Bovell, frontman Mark Stewart, multi-instrumentalist Gareth Sager
Mark Stewart (frontman): “Dub to me is the music of chance.
A teenage dream come true – at last – this one’s for the explorers.”
AllMusic said about the original LP: “Y sounds like a call for revolution, a fearless salvo on behalf of a creative vision without compromise of any form. Decades after its release, Y remains a challenging work that feels contemporary, and much of the experimental rock community is still trying to catch up with it.”
First taster: Words Disobey Me…
Full tracklist:
1. Thief of Fire (Dub Version) 2. Snowgirl (Dub Version) 3. Blood Money (Dub Version) 4. Savage Sea (Dub Version) 5. We Are Time (Dub Version) 6. Words Disobey Me (Dub Version) 7. Don’t Call Me Pain (Dub Version) 8. Boys From Brazil (Dub Version) 9. Don’t Sell Your Dreams (Dub Version)
THE POP GROUP, the legendary avant-garde funk punks out of Bristol released their turbulent, gloriously chaotic and freakishly intriguing debut LP ‘Y’ back in 1979, the year punk was over and made way for a new experimental sonic creativity, lyrically and musically, with anything-is-possible bands such as this compelling one led by MARK STEWART, co-founder and one of the last original, uncompromising frontmen and daring underground artists on this planet.
Assisted by a likewise minded group of incredibly inventive and venturesome musicians The Pop Group ‘s first longplayer wasn’t an easy-listening record, but one that revealed its wayward layers with every spin and still is a mind-expanding-and-exploring trip to hear on your trembling headphones 40 years later.
The great news is that on 1st November a 40th Anniversary Reissue will hit the streets via Mute Records. Check all details and special content of this Definitive Edition right here.
Ahead of it you can already move in mysterious ways to the remastered version of the band’s signature top track off the LP. Here’s ‘SHE IS BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL‘…
‘Y’
The Pop Group
Released: 20 April 1979
Debut longplayer
PITCHFORK wrote: “Unlike most of the late-’70s no-wave types (and perennial imitators),
The Pop Group were less concerned with eschewing convention than with vehemently eviscerating it. Listen to how they tear apart a boxy, reverb-laden surf riff on “We Are Time”
with Dadaist malice and contempt. It’s impossible to ignore Mark Stewart’s incessant Thatcher-bashing, but ‘Y’ is so convincing in its hectoring that one can easily imagine it arising from even more amicable circumstances. This is a record of dire necessity, armed for combat against a long litany of ills—none more than typicality.” Ranked at number 35 on Picthfork’s greatest albums of the 1970s
TURN UP THE VOLUME says: To my ears, ‘Y’ sounded at first, both confusing and fascinating, like cricket, an intriguing sports game of which I still don’t know the rules,
until I found out that this band/album had no rules at all. While the ‘famous’ punk bands became greedy money sharks The Pop Group made the most brain-cracking, the most willful and most cutting middle-finger LP of that tremendous era.
TWO TOP TRACKS: She’s Beyond Good and Evil / We Are Time
