The Pop Group - We Are Time (Remastered) (2014)

Remastered from Original Tapes & on CD for the first time. We Are Time, named after one of their most infamous onslaughts and originally released on vinyl in 1980, has been remastered from original tapes and available on CD for the first time + Limited Vinyl and also as part of a limited CD box set (The Pop Group 'Curiosities') accompanied by memorabilia and an extensive 36pp booklet. Of the early studio and live recordings that comprise We Are Time, frontman Mark Stewart says "We Are Time is really 'the' teenage Pop Group album. It's full of defiance and the material demonstrates the band's staunch independence and our really early DIY ethic before the studio became another instrument." Guitarist Gareth Sager explains that the band was "trying in an inexplicably naive manner to combine Patti Smith's Rimbaud ramblings, James Brown, the Stooges, Roxy Music, T. Rex and classical aleatoric music. You can hear the results of this on tracks 'Genius Or Lunatic', 'Colour Blind', 'Trap', 'Sense Of Purpose', 'Kiss The Book' and 'We Are Time." He goes on to say "soon after this the band were bringing in other influences, Ornette Coleman, King Tubby, Funkadelic, Debussy, Jacques Brel, Fela Kuti, Steve Reich and then you get 'Thief Of Fire'." The Pop Group was born in Bristol in 1977 out of a disenchantment with punk failing to bust out of its rock origins. With mystical fire, enraged by global injustices, the group delivered scathing political and society-indicting messages aboard a post-apocalypse roller coaster, ferociously straddling their beloved free jazz, conscious funk, heavyweight dub and audacious experimentalism. "It's one of those moments when the cogs of your mind shift and your life is going to irreversibly change forever" – Nick Cave on hearing The Pop Group for the first time.