The Politics Of Envy (Deluxe Edition) [Double CD]

Mark Stewart's 7th solo studio album is the first without the Maffia, instead of that he collected a bunch of new and old(!) artists around him. Artist like Richard Hell, Bobby Gillispee (Primal Scream), Reggea and dub goeroe Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Gina Birch (Raincoats), Tessa Pollitt (Slits), Keith Levene (Pil), Daddy G. (Massive Attack), Martin Glover (Killing Joke, Youth), Kahn, Nick Void etc. etc. But does it work out?
One simple anwser YES, it works out. Mark is as sharp as ever, with the spirit of a 14 year old youngster he throws his politcal, critical one-liners through the loudspeakers, supported by disturbing and apocalyptic sounds of bass, guitars and other electronic stuff.
Mostly new songs, but also things Mark has played in recent years on stage (Baby Bourgeois, Apocalyps Hotel ("When the rain start pooring down, and you got no water")). And - even again - an old David Bowie cover: Letter to Hermione, one of my favourits already.
Mark succeeds in "Keeping the dream alive". 6 stars!!!

PS. Apologies for the crappy English, i'm a Dutch guy.

After having waited more than 15 years , we had gotten the brilliant but short "Edit" in 2008.I had to say that my hungryness was far from being satisfied at the time . In the past weekend, on april the 1st , I was looking desperately on the web for any sign for our good old friend Mark, like I do every 3 months, and to my great surprise, I fall on an article on his new album "the politics of envy"....No you must be joking only 4 years after "edit", i was sure it was an april fool's day....but no it's real.This new CD presents lots of collaborations with Primal Scream member(s) , with Keith Levine, with Richard H. Kirk to name but a few. The highlights of this CD are the genial "Want" , a freezing robotic litany in the pure stewart style of the beginnings, "vanity kills" and "black is the color" (apparently only available thru i-tunes).Another highlight could have been the very guitaristic "autonomia", if the primal scream singer would have kept silence...hem.....
It contains as well some very commercial tunes like the transfigured "baby bourgeois" (one of the inissued live tracks) and some exhilarating cover of his own "rise again" (from Edit). Surprisingly, those two could reveal themselves very efficient on the dance floor.
....and cherry on the cake, there is a special edition double CD of this master work......
Viva "the politics of envy"......Viva la revolucion.....Viva Mark Stewart

Funk-punk, shake, wiggle and slide as the intricate rhythms are sleekly designed to move, shift, bump and grind. Meanwhile Mark Stewart hits the dancer with his particular angst take on the world, ripping away the shutters to let the bright light in. The world hidden under the pulp of Express/Mail myopia, as he shows naked greed and true mental health hang out together, like Paris Hilton and Charles Saatchi. In between he paints the rainbow colours of a world yet to arrive. Gently unpicking the apparent reality scab he pokes within its centre to bring out a new vision within the fetid mess that is comprised of the wire meshes of the current social world. A man possessing the spectacular mind of a musical Noam Chomsky welded to the artistic vision of Hieronymous Bosch beating out his heart with the breadthe of Raoul Vanageim.

This album, when first played, did not hit any buttons, it lay flat and limp. Spun again, suddenly its hidden tunes, melodies and imagination became charged then jumped up out and whacked me round the ears, like a 3D vision, emerging from a billboard. This is a brilliantine piece of music from the first note to the dying one as it cascades through modernity and the past to bring out a multi toned full scale attack on celebrity, greed, mental health wrapped in a delicious fragility of emotions (letter to hermione).

Building in layers on a fusion between black and white worlds derived from industrial brazier funk, integrating a number of reggae ganja tools; dub phasing, heavy bass, with peppered hints of early Beastie Boys, minus the adolescent misogyny, this penetrates consciousness up to the hilt. Out gushes a life force from the social wound as he bursts the wider window with his musical dagger.

The punk comes through the vocal delivery, direct line back to the Pop Group angst as Mark wrenches the last calls on time. Beautiful in its majestic scream into the nigtht, this drips with an imagination built for the 21st century from the best elements of the 20th.

As well as Chomksy, he incorporates Erich Fromm's "The Sane Society" whatever you have is never enough, you always want more.A politics of envy, greed and hoarding becoming a true mental health issue deeply afflicting the mutli layers of society, replacing the ersat DSM manual wielded by psychiatrists. Those who try to silence people with trauma whilst reaching into their medicinal cabinet.

Real effects lie within the alienation between people, as the competition of all against all, creates atomistic individuals devoid of connection. Each seeks to outdo the other, whilst operating the hidden hand of the market. Meanwhile he has collected together a group of people who are the purveyors of his vision, such is the charisma,

An album that deserves a big arena, to be blasted high into the atmosphere so it soaks into the limbic systems, the bone marrow and the white corpuscles that take the oxygen to the brain. Finally somewhere over the rainbow will then arrive, sooner that we envisaged.