Sublime Genius In Dub

 

Mark Stewart & The Maffia - Learning To Cope With Cowardice [ON-U LP24 UK 1983 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC]

I promised a new rip of this classic On-U Sound album back in April following Mark Stewart's sad passing. Back in 2012, this record was one of my first attempts at a 24/96 rip, now here it is in glorious 24/176.4kHz, ripped on much better hardware and cleaned up with much improved processes.

I now feel that I've been able to do justice with one of the most important albums of its era. Performed by the former Pop Group frontman, backed by various members of the On-U Sound house band, including Eskimo Fox, George Oban and Sly Scott, Learning To Cope With Cowardice is a dub heavy poke at life in Britain in the early eighties. The album was preceded in 1982 by Stewart's unpatriotic interpretation of William Blake's Jerusalem.

As with all On-U Sound releases, label head Adrian Sherwood deals with production duties, adding sampled cut-ups & overdubs, distortion and other acoustic ephemera. Back when I last ripped this album, I included a splendid article courtesy of the highly informative On-U Sound In The Area website. Here is is once more for those who enjoy a good read with their listen....

Mark Stewart remains one On-U Sound's most influential acts, having made peerless, arresting and skull splintering music for almost as long as anyone can remember. Here then is his story: Mark Stewart started out in Bristol in 1978 with the Pop Group - an out-there, genre-busting band whose titles, political conviction, disrespect for copyright and willingness to collaborate laid the foundations for his later work. This militant gang of leftist radical politicos specialised in a funk-driven cacophony of sound that was abrasive, strident, and ultimately very exciting.

Railing against Margaret Thatcher's Tory UK government, the state of pop music, racism and sexism, the Pop Group were not the easiest band of the early post-punk era to listen to, but those who made the effort were in for an interesting melange of primitive rhythms and avant-garde guitar racket. Led by Stewart's squalling vocals, they were unabashedly and stridently radical to the point of being hectoring. But, unlike others of their ilk, the music was so challenging, joyfully noisy, and downright weird that it was easy to cut them a little slack, even when their finger-pointing and ranting became a bit much. Said Stewart once of the group's output, after its decline:

"It was not punk. Punk had already happened. We were a year or two younger than the punk bands. 

And I'd always loved black music. I'd always gone to funk clubs so I wanted to play funk. We 

really thought we were funky, but we couldn't play very well and we played out of time, so 

people thought we were avant-garde. All these old journalists would come up to you and start 

talking about Captain Beefheart. I couldn't stand Captain Beefheart. We thought we were like 

Bootsy Collins or something."

Never intending to make a serious run at the pop charts, the Pop Group imploded in 1981 after three albums. They did, however, contribute some talented people to other bands: most notably Gareth Sanger, who formed Rip Rig & Panic, which also featured the lead vocals of a then-teenage Neneh Cherry. Stewart of course went on to flourish in Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound stable of artists.

The highlight of this first LP Learning To Cope With Cowardice is almost certainly the last track of its vinyl editions, Jerusalem. British politicians of various persuasions have laid claim to William Blake's anthem in the process of attempting to create a definition of "England" as a nation. Stewart however has perhaps more claim to Blake's legacy as it is clear from Blake's texts that his visions of "England" were both beautiful and horrific. The track itself continues the theme of a disregard for copyright kicked off by the Pop Group, phasing an uncredited choral version of the song in and out of the mix.

On paper it didn't sound like it would work. Urban paranoia and a techno sensibility; the positivity of dub reggae gone horribly wrong; dystopian visions mixed with those of William Blake, Donna Summer and William Burroughs; voodoo and ultra-left texts. But it worked, and when it didn't, the fractures could be far more rewarding than the gleaming monolith of any corporate uber-production it could never have been.

A1 Learning To Cope With Cowardice

A2 Liberty City

A3 Blessed Are Those Who Struggle

A4 None Dare Call It Conspiracy

B1 Don't You Ever Lay Down Your Arms

B2 The Paranoia Of Power

B3 To Have A Vision

B4 Jerusalem