she is beyond good and evil..
[another selection from the vaults of my musical youth]
The Pop Group were a bunch of musical post-punk no-wavers from Bristol in the UK, who between 1978 and 1981 released several singles, and two albums - “Y” and “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?”.
I picked up “For How Much Longer…” sometime after it’s release in 1980. It was noisey, percussive and politically inspired, but somehow seemed more exotic than alot of the other post-punk music I was listening to at the time, partly due no doubt to the singer Mark Stewart’s often deranged vocals..!
After they split the darkly exuberant Mr Stewart formed “Mark Stewart & The Mafia” and released a bunch of music on Adrian Sherwood’s experimental “On-U Sound” label, while other members went on to form bands Pigbag, Head, Maximum Joy, and Rip Rig & Panic. I’ll post some of their music here in the future..
The Pop Group may have only been around for 3 years, but they left quite a mark on their local city, being widely acknowledged for helping create the Bristol music scene that followed, and influencing such notable Bristol bands as Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky etc..
It’s also safe to say they had a noticable influence on the modern disco-punk sound that includes such bands as LCD Sound System, Outhud, Chik Chick Chik etc..
The Pop Group’s original vinyl releases are hard to come by these days, but thanks to those musical boffins at Soul Jazz records in London you can pick up a compilation album of The Pop Group and Mark Stewart that they released a couple of years back. Check it here along with more info about the band..
Anyways here’s a video of them performing “She is Beyond Good and Evil” from 1979..
enjoy -