“OtherWorld music”

The Pop Group sounded otherworldly. ‘OtherWorld music’ might in fact be the most apt tag for The Pop Group’s delirial montage of funk, free jazz, Jamaican audio-mancy and the avant-garde.
The Pop Group
“dissidents from a ostensibly anti-establishment punk that had already calcified into orthodoxy”
Britse band (1977-1981) die in hun noise muziek dub reggae, diepe funk, free jazz, zelfs klassieke muziek en Afrikaanse ritmes integreerden en alles brachten met de energie van de punk. Het maakte van hen een van de meest radicale, complexe, originele en invloedrijke bands van eind jaren 70, begin jaren 80. Ze waren ook uitgesproken politiek met hun anarchistisch engagement.
Leden. Mark Stewart (vocals), John Waddington (gitaar), Simon Underwood (bass), Gareth Sager (gitaar/sax), Bruce Smith (drums)
Discografie. Albums: “Y” (1979), “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?” (1980). Singles “She Is Beyond Good and Evil” (1979), “We Are All Prostitutes” (1979), “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way” (1980, split single met the Slits). Ook: “Y in Dub” (2021) dub versie van “Y”, Dennis Bovell
Beyond the Pop Group. Mark Stewart ging solo als Mark Stewart & the Maffia en werkte nauw samen met Adrian Sherwood en On-U Sound. Gareth Sager stond mee aan de wieg van Rip Rig + Panic en opvolger Float Up CP. Simon Underwood speelde bij Pigbag.
Bruce Smith speelde mee met The Slits, the New Age Steppers en Public Image Ltd. Smith speelde ook drums op “Debut” van Björk. John Waddington speelde mee met Maximum Joy.
“They signalled the moment that punk mutated into something new and infinitely more ambitious, a chaotic merging of dub, funk, avant-garde noise with paranoid, often politically charged, lyrics. Their music spoke of a future free from the few already exhausted chords that rock’n’roll was built on.” (Sean O’Hagan in the Guardian, 2010).

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Rip Rig + Panic
Britse post-punk band (1980-1983). Ze mengden post-punk, funk en reggae met avant-garde elementen en jazz, op smaak gebracht door de poppy soulstem van Neneh Cherry. De naam komt van een gelijknamig album van jazz muzikant Roland Kirk. Opgericht door Sean Oliver (bass), Mark Springer (piano, sax, vocals), Gareth Sager (guitar, sax, keyboards, vocals) en Bruce Smith (drums, percussion), samen met zangeres Neneh Cherry (dochter van jazz muzikant Don Cherry, die zelf meespeelde op I Am Cold).

entr’acte … Pigbag “Papa’s got a brand new pigbag” voor dé dansplaat van de jaren 80

“The Original Riotgrrrls”

The Slits
Ari Up (vocals), Viv Albertine (gitaar), Tessa Pollitt (bass), Palmolive (drums)
Albums : Cut (1979), Return of the Giant Slits (1981), Trapped Animal (2009)
Singles : Typical Girls / I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1979), In the Beginning There Was Rhythm (1980, split single met The Pop Group), Man Next Door / Man Next Door (version) (1980), Animal Space / Animal Spacier (1981), Earthbeat / Earthdub / Begin Again, Rhythm (1981)

“A bunch of outsiders”

“disturbing the comfortable, comforting the disturbed”
On-U Sound – iconic dub label founded around 1980 by producer Adrian Sherwood, working almost entirely under a collective mentality with members from seemingly disparate communities coming together to craft unique, genre-bending sound experiments. If you had to pin On-U Sound to a single genre, it would be dub reggae. But the label slips free of easy categorisation.
Home of the New Age Steppers, African Head Charge, Singers & Players and many more.

entr’acte Long-time On-U Sound collaborators Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc were the backbone of many hiphop hits on the Sugar Hill label, including “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five. For On-U Sound they formed the industrial/dub group Tackhead and performed on many albums on the label. Keith Leblanc’s record “No Sell Out” was one of the first sample-based releases. Skip McDonald formed Little Axe, his bluesdub band.

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Prince Far I
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Last Poets
Crass
Massive Attack

quote

“I thought I was making funk music, but a track on Veneer of Democracy supposedly inspired all the American industrialists, like Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy, while another track supposedly inspired the Bristol kids. It happens all the time. I’ve got this nonchalance that nothing is sacred so I’ll crash a Slayer guitar line with Rotterdam gabba beats. For me, it’s like colours. I grew up doing montages; like I did this collage of Ronald Reagan’s head on this gay porno cowboy. In fact, I’ve never really grown up at all. I’m still trying to put round things into square holes.” (Mark Stewart)