THE POP GROUP Schallplatten & CDs

Review: It may have taken 42 years, but the Pop Group have finally delivered a dub-wise interpretation of their incredible debut album Y, a 1979 post-punk masterpiece that remains one of the finest dub-influenced, avant-garde rock sets of the period. Fittingly, original producer - and UK dub legend - Dennis Bovell MBE is once again behind the desk, delivering weighty, skeletal and breath-taking interpretations that retain the freewheeling attitude and sonic intensity of the Bristol band's 1979 versions/Skeletal, echo-laden, bass-heavy and impressively stripped back, Bovell's new dub mixes are uniformly brilliant, with our picks of a very strong bunch including the sludgy, slow-motion take on 'Blood Money', the experimental ambient dub treatment of 'Savage Sea', the dancefloor-ready revision of 'We Are The Fire' and the trippy dub-jazz mix of 'Don't Call Me Pain'.

Review: This 40th anniversary reissue of The Pop Group's seminal Y Live album is a timely reminder of what a game changer it was. Hugely inventive and original upon initial release in 1979, it is still an alarming and arresting record of experimental noise. Manic vocal samples, caustic guitars, detuned synths and dishevelled drums make it a tribal and dystopian fusion of unease and terror. It includes tracks recorded in New York, Manchester and Brussels and all re-cut to half speed vinyl, with a special 12" including "She Is Beyond Good & Evil" and "3'38" as well as a special poster.

Review: Incredibly, 'Honeymoon On Mars' is only the fourth studio album to be released by The Pop Group in a career that's stretched on and off across five decades, and it both sees links with their past and a bold vision for the future. Produced by the dream team of Dennis Bovell (the reggae legend who helmed their first album 'Y' in 1979) and Public Enemy's exemplary noise assassin Hank Shocklee, it's an explosion of sound that defies genre at every turn in a vicious attack on modern-day conformity and inertia. Iconoclasts to the last, Mark Stewart and company's ire has never burned brighter than it does in this increasingly complicated age.

Review: Incredibly, 'Honeymoon On Mars' is only the fourth studio album to be released by The Pop Group in a career that's stretched on and off across five decades, and it both sees links with their past and a bold vision for the future. Produced by the dream team of Dennis Bovell (the reggae legend who helmed their first album 'Y' in 1979) and Public Enemy's exemplary noise assassin Hank Shocklee, it's an explosion of sound that defies genre at every turn in a vicious attack on modern-day conformity and inertia. Iconoclasts to the last, Mark Stewart and company's ire has never burned brighter than it does in this increasingly complicated age.

Review: Incredibly, 'Honeymoon On Mars' is only the fourth studio album to be released by The Pop Group in a career that's stretched on and off across five decades, and it both sees links with their past and a bold vision for the future. Produced by the dream team of Dennis Bovell (the reggae legend who helmed their first album 'Y' in 1979) and Public Enemy's exemplary noise assassin Hank Shocklee, it's an explosion of sound that defies genre at every turn in a vicious attack on modern-day conformity and inertia. Iconoclasts to the last, Mark Stewart and company's ire has never burned brighter than it does in this increasingly complicated age.

Review: In a late-'70s and early-'80s scene plagued by one too many posturing punks and bandwagon-jumpers, The Pop Group hit like a molotov cocktail - here was a band taking the righteous ire and anti-establishment fury of the era, yet one without musical boundaries, taking in jazz, funk and primitive noise to make a seeting cauldron of blissful rage. These previously unreleased recordings capture the band at the absolute peak of their powers, arrive alongside film footage shot by Don Letts, and sound as much of a throwing down of the gauntlet today as they did then.

Review: In a late-'70s and early-'80s scene plagued by one too many posturing punks and bandwagon-jumpers, The Pop Group hit like a molotov cocktail - here was a band taking the righteous ire and anti-establishment fury of the era, yet one without musical boundaries, taking in jazz, funk and primitive noise to make a seeting cauldron of blissful rage. These previously unreleased recordings capture the band at the absolute peak of their powers, arrive alongside film footage shot by Don Letts, and sound as much of a throwing down of the gauntlet today as they did then.

Review: It's been a bracing thirty-five years since the Pop Group's last album 'For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder', yet the passing of decades has clearly done very little to dampen the incandescent ire of Mark Stewart and his cohorts. In fact, 'Citizen Zombie' is proof that not only does their blast-furnace of punk energy, noisy dub contortions and sinewy funk survive intact, but that the here and now only inspires them to still more furious heights of intensity. Produced by the illustrious Paul Epworth, this barrage of restless invention, iconoclastic zeal and feral charisma is a powerful transmission from an eternal spanner in the works.

Review: It's been a bracing thirty-five years since the Pop Group's last album 'For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder', yet the passing of decades has clearly done very little to dampen the incandescent ire of Mark Stewart and his cohorts. In fact, 'Citizen Zombie' is proof that not only does their blast-furnace of punk energy, noisy dub contortions and sinewy funk survive intact, but that the here and now only inspires them to still more furious heights of intensity. Produced by the illustrious Paul Epworth, this barrage of restless invention, iconoclastic zeal and feral charisma is a powerful transmission from an eternal spanner in the works.

Review: It's been a bracing thirty-five years since the Pop Group's last album 'For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder', yet the passing of decades has clearly done very little to dampen the incandescent ire of Mark Stewart and his cohorts. In fact, 'Citizen Zombie' is proof that not only does their blast-furnace of punk energy, noisy dub contortions and sinewy funk survive intact, but that the here and now only inspires them to still more furious heights of intensity. Produced by the illustrious Paul Epworth, this barrage of restless invention, iconoclastic zeal and feral charisma is a powerful transmission from an eternal spanner in the works.