Dub as an attitude, its “destruction of a structure a political as well as a musical statement.” The end of the civil society averted—this time.
In contrast with the many who have blagged their way through lengthy, meaningless careers, Mark Stewart is one of a few good angry Englishmen. The anarchistic Pop Group he co-founded in Bristol in 1978 gave way to New Age Steppers, an alliance with Adrian Sherwood’s On-U sound and the creation of his own Maffia with Doug Wimbish, Keith LeBlanc and Skip McDonald (aka Tackhead) and ultimately a solo career dotted with collaborators as diverse as Trent Reznor, Massive Attack and The Bug. Always intense, political, paranoid and/or prescient, his integrity and aesthetics remain impeccable, a monkey against the monolithic bank of surveillance screens. Credited variously with having served to influence industrial dub, UK dub, trip hop and breakcore. leaning perhaps too heavily ultra-left, he remains the “theory” in chaos theory.
An early adapter of dub, Stewart pulverizes his latest solo album. The Politics of Envy and its Exorcism of Envy feature their own eyebrow-lifting cast of collaborators, headed up by co-producer Youth (of Killing Joke), Kenneth Anger, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Richard Hell, Public Image Ltd. guitarist Keith Levene, fellow survivors of seminal punk bands Crass and The Slits, and entire bands Primal Scream and Factory Floor. Revisited and versioned, its original, keen focus is atomized and then, according to Stewart, “[buried] in bi-products of our hyper media,” utilizing the oldest Jamaican studio magic and latest digidub. Big Ben-shaking, the singer’s lyrics become embittered echolalia, but in this carnation, the method is the message. Dub as an attitude, its “destruction of a structure a political as well as a musical statement.” The end of the civil society averted—this time.
Exorcism of Envy is available on Future Noise Music.
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