Track Of Yesterday: Mark Stewart - Hypnotised (Mute)

 

To my eternal regret, I never saw either The Pop Group or Mark Stewart live. And it’s too late now. We do, however, have a rich back catalogue of his uncompromising musical and idealistic vision to call upon at will. And ‘Hypnotized’ was his first solo release after the split of The pop Group, here extended and mixed into an industrial dub nightmare by Adrian Sherwood (who else?). And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just as much about the ambience as anything else here, with Mark Stewart’s vocals taking a minimal role, but overstatement is the enemy here. Concision is everything. Lovely Burroughs sample too. The instrumentation is provided, more or less, by Tackhead under the guise of Maffia Members.