The Politics Of Envy

 

During the last days I listened a lot to post-punk sounds of the early 80's like the first albums by PIL and records by On-U-Sound from this era. Listening to them I came back to The Pop Group and Mark Stewart after a long time. The Politics Of Envy was his seventh album and still a milestone in this kind of genre. Together with Primal Scream, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Raincoat's Gina Birch and Clash/PIL guitarist Keith Levene he created a disturbing album with different styles and influences. You can find the anarchic industrial and angry sound of The Pop Group as well as a forgotten post-punk song with Keith Levene on guitar on Stereotype and agitation funk which was recorded with Bobby Gillespie by Primal Scream and focuses on the death of the Anti-G8-Demonstranten Carlo Guilliani in Genoa. It is still not easy to listen to this album but if you sink to it you can enjoy this unique sound experiences.

Mark Stewart - Stereotype

Mark Stewart - Autonomia

Mark Stewart and Lee Perry - Gang War

Priests

After two weeks of inauguration of the main disaster in the western world there is some rumour in the public scene. All over Europe a lot of people rise up against the decrees of Mr. Trump (still too less in my opinion). And it makes me smile, that there are people across the ocean that think in my way about what is going on (wrong) in these days. Priests are a new band from Washington D.C. and they stand in the tradition of punk/new wave. It is probably the best band I heard this year so far. They unite classic punk with a kind of surf-rock, Sonic Youth, Raincoats and early Sleater Kinney. This combination is not the worst at all. Maybe the sound a lot of folks can agree with.