Mark Stewart never said “Goodbye.” The news came out one day that he had taken his leave quietly, without notice and without explanation. He had simply put on his jean jacket and slipped away from the party.
It was the opposite of the way that the big man had communicated on record and stage. As the front man for Bristol’s The Pop Group, Stewart had played rage as an instrument. As a solo artist, there was a unique intensity to his material, fuelled by magical conspiracy theories and genuine empathy for the downtrodden.
It was good to hear, therefore, that Stewart had left a complete album in the can. Now available on Mute, The Fateful Symmetry arrives with a deliberate sense of closure. The record consolidates Stewart’s wide-ranging influences—post-punk, dub, and experimental electronics—into a reflective and often restrained body of work. It’s less a departure from his past than a reconfiguration of it; showing Stewart still engaged with the concerns and sounds that shaped his career.
Opener “Memory Of You” sets the tone: a relatively melodic track with a subdued electronic backdrop and Stewart’s vocal delivery more contemplative than confrontational. There’s a notable emphasis on clarity and structure throughout the album, with arrangements often pared down, allowing lyrics and mood to carry the weight. While Stewart’s earlier solo work often reveled in density and dissonance, The Fateful Symmetry leans into atmosphere and pacing.
Adrian Sherwood’s mix of The Korgis’ track, “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime,” transforms the familiar into something looser and more ambiguous than its pop origins would suggest.
Tracks like “Crypto Religion” and “Blank Town” suggest a lingering distrust of digital culture and urban decay – familiar thematic ground for Stewart. Yet, even here, the delivery feels less urgent than observational. The edges are still present, but softened. It’s an album that gestures more than it declares.
The delicate poetry of the album closer, “A Long Road” recalls the sensitivity of “Stranger than Love;” but, perhaps, is even more beautiful in its delivery. Stewart’s voice is raspy and harsh, as usual, but invested with a personal quality that is also gentle and endearing. It’s a genuine and cinematic tear-jerker, in light of events.
“We are the children of the void,” he sings on “Blank Town.” And we all commit to it, in the end.
It also led to the reorganisation of DAF as the duo of Görl and Delgado. After Die Kleinen…, they clinched a contract with Virgin Records and forged a new, minimal sound. The rest of the band were out, and Miller was told only after the deal was done. It was a messy affair, but it led to a series of albums that set new templates for European electronic music. With only a sequencer, basic synths, a drum kit, and Delgado’s voice, DAF crafted a distinctive sound with songs that cut open the belly of punk. Görl’s drums and electronics steered a path between icy anthems and intimate tracks, avoiding the traps of both 4/4 dance music and pub rock, while Delgado purred and shouted slogans and sensual promises with equal intensity.
The new arrangement was successful, but it didn’t last. It couldn’t have lasted. After three albums in two years, all produced in Conny’s Studio, DAF pulled the plug. The passion that kept the music interesting also led to collisions that blew the partnership apart. They regrouped in 1986 for a dance-oriented album, 1st Step to Heaven, but the tensions kept resurfacing. Over the years, the fans pulled DAF back into the studio and onto the stage, but keeping the band together was a recurring challenge.
In the gaps between DAF projects, Görl continued to produce exceptional music. In 1983, after the first DAF split, Görl returned to Mute Records with the single, “Mit Dir.” That led to a further single and album produced by Mike Hedges, including a collaboration with Annie Lennox of Eurythmics. Görl had provided drums for the Eurythmics’ 1981 single, “Belinda,” which appeared on the Plank-produced album, In the Garden, and kept close to Lennox. Although critically well received, Night Full of Tension failed to ignite Görl’s solo career in the UK.
After the second DAF split, in 1987, Görl went off to study acting in New York; quickly finding himself expelled for having the wrong visa. On return to West Germany, he was picked up by the army, which wanted to know why he hadn’t completed his national service. Faced with the choice of joining the Bundeswehr or making music, Görl split for Paris, where he recorded demos in a suburban flat. He took them to London, where Daniel Miller recommended that he connect with the Canadian prog musician, Dee Long, who had set up as a Fairlight operator at George Martin’s AIR Studios. Long had previously worked with 
Mark Stewart, The Pop Group vocalist and bard of conspiracy theories, is having one of his best solo LPs reissued with added materials from the archives.
Thomas Leer and Robert Rental accidentally made one of the most compelling and influential albums of the 1970s. While disco and punk faded around them, they locked themselves in an apartment in Battersea with some rudimentary equipment supplied by Throbbing Gristle and gave birth to The Bridge.
The history of The Bridge and the paths of both artists were displayed at the recent exhibition, From The Port To The Bridge, in Greenock. Organised by Simon Dell (right), it captured an enormous amount of detail that had been obscured by Rental’s retirement from public music activity. With care and precision, it laid out the creative flare that burned when Leer and Rental came together, as well as Rental’s notorious live collaboration with Daniel Miller of Mute Records.
The pair moved around, starting families and playing punk in Edinburgh, before finding themselves in London. Inspired to make their own singles, they pooled their resources so that Leer could make “Private Planes/International” and Rental could record “ACC/Paralysis.” Part of the DIY revolution that saw the early electronic music from The Normal and Human League emerging around the same time, the singles from Leer and Rental hinted at the gritty, alternative sounds that they would bring to The Bridge.
Following the tour, Throbbing Gristle re-entered the picture. The Industrial Records label, started to release their own music, had already issued a single from Monte Cazazza, and the “very friendly” quartet were looking for other artists to get involved with. A signing ceremony was organised at a Soho restaurant, just like they imagined major labels would do, and arrangements were made for an album to be recorded.
Rental was asked by Daniel Miller to record a single for his fledgling Mute Records imprint. “Double Heart/On Location” was recorded at Blackwing Studios, where Miller had first set up his equipment for Silicon Teens, and it involved Leer and the DAF drummer, Robert Goerl. Recorded by Miller with Eric Radcliffe and John Fryer, “Double Heart” was Rental’s last studio project. The pressure of recording with others and the technical challenges of getting the sound he wanted frustrated Rental, and he invested in making his own studio in Battersea. Although he produced music for The Comic Strip’s A Fistful of Traveller’s Cheques, his perfectionism got in the way of releasing additional material, and there were no further public recordings before his premature death in 2000.
Tina Schnekenburger has worn a number of guises over the years.
Did you ever have to sleep on the floor at Daniel Miller’s house in London?
