Scritti Politti

Most folks think about post-punk as a revival big with rich kids slumming it in hipster colonies like Brooklyn. They haven't heard the original stuff from the early '80s. But simply compare, say, the Rapture's Echoes to this compilation of Scritti Politti's early singles, and you'll learn just how grating and atonal old school post-punk really was. Stuttering, anti-funk jams like "28/8/78" and "Hegemony" feel as soothing as a cheese grater to the back of the noggin.

England's Scritti Politti truly spread the gospel of DIY with their 1978 debut, Skank Bloc
Bologna. The Xerox-art sleeve featured precise details on what they spent to make the
record (example: eight pounds for white, rubber-stamped labels). The shoestring
economics belie the art-attack depth of the original trio's three EPs, all bundled here:
socialist ire set to bent-reggae rhythms and skeletal-twang guitars and sung with... More >