Mark Stewart Is Learning To Cope With Cowardice

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. Learning To Cope With Cowardice will be released on Mute on double vinyl, double CD and as a limited edition double clear vinyl (with a percentage of the vinyl sales going to the Mercy Ships charity) on January 25.

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.”

Tracklist

LP 1 / Disc 1

1.         Learning To Cope With Cowardice

2.         Liberty City

3.         Blessed Are Those Who Struggle

4.         None Dare Call It Conspiracy

5.         Don’t You Ever Lay Down Your Arms

6.         The Paranoia of Power

7.         To Have The Vision

8.         Jerusalem

LP 2 / Disc 2

1.         Intro

2.         May I

3.         Conspiracy

4.         Jerusalem [prototype]

5.         Paranoia

6.         Liberty Dub

7.         Vision

8.         Cowardice Dub

9.         High Ideals & Crazy Dub

10.       The Weight