Album: Mark Stewart, The Politics of Envy (Future Noise)

Mark Stewart has been cross-pollinating sounds since his time with The Pop Group, always freighted with an abrasive political attitude, and the splendid The Politics of Envy simply ratchets that process up a few notches.

These scarified dub bricolages and brutal electro-trudges aren't designed to slip down easily, but to stick in the craw – from the tirade against "vicious beauty" in "Vanity Kills", a collaboration with proto-punk Richard Hell and outsider legend Kenneth Anger, all the way through to Keith Levene's tingling PiL-guitar on "Stereotype". In between are further guest spots from the likes of Bobby Gillespie on the shrill "Autonomia", Lee Perry "spitting diamonds" over the slow skank of "Gang War", and industrial electro-scapers Factory Floor on the menacing "Want".

DOWNLOAD THIS Vanity Kills; Autonomia; Gang War; Want; Stereotype