Mark Stewart

An enduring figure on the edgy frontiers of the British music scene, Mark Stewart, first came to prominence as a member of the punk/dub noisemaking squad The Pop Group, and has been storming musical boundaries and making powerful, confrontational music ever since. Emboldened by punk but not impressed with its stylistic hegemony, Stewart and his friends were eager to start a punk-funk band, and in 1978 he teamed up with guitarists John Waddington and Gareth Sager, bassist Simon Underwood, and drummer Bruce Smith to form the Pop Group. In 1980, the Pop Group split up, and Stewart Bruce Smith, and Waddington appeared on the first album by The New Age Steppers, whose music was a prescient fusion of dub and post-punk experimentalism. It was Stewart ’s first work with producer Adrian Sherwood of On-U Sound, who would prove to be a valuable ally and frequent collaborator. Stewart released his first solo effort in 1983, Learning to Cope with Cowardice; credited to Mark Stewart and the Maffia. Through much of the 1990s and 2000s, Stewart devoted much of his energy to producing and collaborating with other artists, including Tricky, Massive Attack, Trent Reznor. In 2010, he announced that he was re-forming the Pop Group with original members Gareth Sager and Bruce Smith for a series of reunion shows and that the band would begin work on a new album. A new edition of Learning to Cope with Cowardice will be out on 25th January 2019 on Mute.