The debut album from The Pop Group is the sort of record where the reputation of what's going to be heard is a good deal more frightening than the actual release. And while lots of Y, out now in a deluxe reissue edition from Mute, remains a challenging listen, one is surprised at how easily this squall can be embraced. One can't really fully feel safe as this chaos unfolds, but there's a certain artistic beauty in the way that Mark Stewart and his crew threw so many styles together.
"Thief of Fire" is glorious chaos, while "Snowgirl" is elastic dub, perfected by the production of Dennis Blovell here. Elsewhere, "We are Time" is what happens when dub is married to punk, while "Words Disobey Me" is looser still, shades of Beefheart peeking through here. The Pop Group sometimes haphazardly threw these genres together but Y remains a record of undeniable force and near-primitive power. I mean, this is too abstract to be really dangerous, and too unhinged to be something to groove to, so it's likely that Mark Stewart confused both punks and reggae-heads back in 1979. Still, for what Y did well, "She is Beyond Good and Evil", the first single, did even better. This one still shocks, shards of guitar jutting up against fairly rhythmic hooks. The song is a neat distillation of the destructive pop of The Pop Group.
This edition of Y is supplemented with Alien Blood, a set of studio versions of some of the songs that ended up on Y, including a nicely discordant run at "Don't Sell Your Dreams" that seems to echo in the head long after the cut is over, and a rendition of "Blood Money" that's very nearly the stuff of a nightmare. Sounds here trail off into the void, and bits and pieces of instrumentation disintegrate and morph nearly right in front of us. The bass sustains this and other numbers here, but, really, Mark Stewart seemed intent on destroying mainstream forms, and a good many post-punk ones as well.
A live set closes out this definitive edition of Y, with "Blood Money" here seeming to prefigure lots of what Nick Cave and The Birthday Party would do later. That number, like "Don't Call Me Pain" owes, in its live form, something to free jazz. And if there's not a real improvisational magic happening here, at least The Pop Group achieved a certain coherence live, such that the chaos unfolded almost on cue. One listen to "Boys from Brazil" here in its live version and one hears what I mean. There's jazz-influenced playing happening, but lots more that places this in the realm of art rock more than anything else.
Y is out now via Mute.
More details on The Pop Group via the official Facebook page.