Mark Stewart and The Maffia - Learning to Cope With Cowardice (2019)

Learning To Cope With Cowardice, the groundbreaking debut solo album by visionary post-punk iconoclast Mark Stewart, is to be given a definitive reissue alongside The Lost Tapes, a newly discovered cache of unreleased material. Mark Stewart himself perceives The Lost Tapes as a document that now possesses a storied significance: "It was a real adventure discovering this forbidden history, a twisted tale of Muswell hillbillies, French pirates and a Dutch schizophrenic doctor doing psychic archaeology." Whilst Adrian Sherwood describes these works as characteristic of a distinct primitivism: "[The Lost Tapes represent] the early childhood of the songs before Mark and me conducted frenzied, scorched earth, slash-and-burn, twenty hour mental, manic editing sessions at Crass' studios that led to birthing the finished album." After disbanding The Pop Group in the wake of a final performance at a momentous CND rally in 1980, Stewart had grown disillusioned with the UK's music industry. Besides working for CND Stewart had embarked on a prolonged visit to New York the same year, where he encountered a nascent hip hop scene anchored by Kiss FM's Kool DJ Red Alert. Together with the sounds of inner-city construction sites, in particular the heavyweight impact of pile drivers, his exposure to the pioneering cut-and-paste of early hip hop represented an epiphany that catalysed Stewart's daring next project. For this vision, Stewart and emergent dub pioneer Adrian Sherwood, assembled a core crew of reggae players including legendary horn player and alumni of the fabled Alpha Boys school 'Deadly' Headley Bennett as well as the ringleader of African Head Charge Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah. Alongside them Stewart added Charlie 'Eskimo' Fox, a drummer he had heard backing Ranking Dread, and Evar Wellington of classic British reggae band Merger, a bassist both The Pop Group and Public Image Ltd had previously shared a bill with. Other miscreants and affiliates added studio contributions to this central faction, including George Oban, Crucial Tony, Desmond 'Fatfingers' Coke and John 'Waddy' Waddington (The Pop Group) With this group convened and christened 'The Maffia' Mark Stewart, in his first ever collaboration with soon-to-be regular production partner Adrian Sherwood, forged a record that has to be heard to be believed.