Scritti Politti Biography

Biography of Scritti Politti. Detailed Scritti Politti profile and review.

Scritti Politti is the name of Welsh singer-songwriter Green Gartside's musical project. The early line-up of the band also included Matthew Kay, Tom Morley, and Nial Jinks. The primary line up of the band consisted of Gartside, David Gamson, and Fred Maher. The name Scritti Politti is taken from Italian Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci's, work by the same title. It translates in English to: 'political writings'.

Gartside moved to London's Camden Town in around 1977 having studied Fine Art at Leeds and lived in a squat at 3 Regent's Park Road and in the infamous Carol St. collective. Heavily influenced by reggae, and inspired by the DIY movement such as Desperate Bicycles and early punk such as the The Gang Of Four, he formed Scritti Politti. Scritti Politti released a DIY record titled 'Skank Bloc Bologna' on the St.Pancreas label. To the raw energy of punk, Scritti Politti added an instrumental chaos and mock-philosophical intelligence in their lyrics. In the beginnings the band was made up of "anyone who turned up" which produced a sound of creative spontaneity and (in their own words) ‘racket’. The lyrical language games may or may not have been entirely tongue in cheek, and the scholarly allusions more or less well digested (Marx, Bakunin, Derrida, Deleuze, Lacan). In ‘tracks’ like ‘Hegemony’ or ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ the fracturing of language and spikiness of the sound were held together by what seemed at the time an incongruous sense of beautiful melody, thus giving the Scrits a different feel from the more austere music of the post punk scene.

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After the success of "Skank Bloc Bologna" the band signed to Rough Trade records and released two further EP's to general critial acclaim. New titles were 'Knowledge', 'Doubt Beat', OPEC/Immac and Hegemony which led onto more melodic songs such as 'Confidence' which hinted at the direction the newly slimmed down 3 piece would take. Rough Trade records was a hotbed of new talent at the time under the leadership of Geoff Travis, and Green found himself label-mates with the other celebrated Cardiff avant-gardist band at the time, Young Marble Giants. By the time of ‘4 A-sides’, a highly accomplished blend of strong melody and rhythmic jaggedness had been achieved, and for a while, Scritti Politti were the Great White Hope of English pop music. Added to the above (and Green’s highly original singing voice) was a very explicit do-it-yourself attitude, which manifested itself on their hand-made record sleeves with detailed breakdowns of production costs, including addresses and phone numbers of record pressing plants, and even their own Camden squat address for feedback.

Unfortunatley however whilst on a national tour with The Gang Of Four, Green fell ill owing to extreme anxiety caused bythe pressure of playing live. Green retreated to his native Wales and began writing an album, which was to be heavily influenced by the RandB and New York sound he was listening to. The first outing of one of the new songs was The Sweetest Girl which was featured on a free cassette tape given away with the New Musical Express, NME. The song was a huge success and received rave reviews. Unfortunately the track was not given a wider release until 10 months later, by then momentum was lost and it became a minor top 50 hit. The 2005 release of a retrospective CD from the Rough Trade years, ‘Early’, however, shows what energy and distinctiveness was lost in the struggle for homogeneity of sound and commercial success. The 1981 single, ‘The Sweetest Girl’ seemed at the time to be a lovely, if anomalous, addition to an oeuvre-in-progress, but in fact it was the template for their next reincarnaton. This was followed by minor hits "Faithless" and "Asylums in Jerusalem" and the album "Songs To Remember" was released on Rough Trade records in September 1982. It was a huge critical and commercial success reaching #12 in the national album chart and #1 in the indepedent album charts. It is said that the money Rough Trade made from STR allowed Travis to sign The Smiths. But Green wanted more. He was becoming more and more influenced by the new sounds coming out of New York: hip hop especially. He wanted to experiment with new influences and decided he needed a wider audience and a label with deeper pockets. After a record label bidding war, he signed with Virgin records in 1983 for the ROW and Warner Bros. in the U.S. The original line-up was disbanded and esentially Scritti Politti became a solo vehicle for Green. He moved to New York City and began working on what was to become his signature sound. His first work was a song called "Small Talk" recorded with Nile Rogers of Chic fame. However, the track was not released due to contractual wrangles between Rough Trade and Virgin. He then began working with producer Arif Mardinand recorded the critically and commercially successful track, "Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)"

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He later teamed with David Gamson and Fred Maher to write and record what is arguably Scritti Politti's masterpiece: ‘Cupid and Psyche 85.’ The album marked the full conceptual development of the musical/political turn that Gartside was attempting with 'Songs to Remember'. 'Cupid and Psyche '85' contained no less than four ‘disco/soul’ style hits, including songs produced by Arif Mardin and performances by numerous notable session musicians. The next album, 'Provision', continued the development of seamlessly produced synth-funk. The roster of session players also became even more impressive, including performances by Miles Davis and Roger Troutman. Stylistically Scritti Politti's work moved from radical post-punk to smooth, highly polished 1980's power pop, and in their most recent work also developed to encompass rap music. Gartside innovatively incorporated sampling into his music as early as 1985's Cupid and Psyche 85. Their 1999 album, Anomie and Bonhomie, featured rappers Mos Def and Jimahl. The jazz trumpet player Miles Davis was interested in some of Scritti Politti's material and covered one of their songs, 'Perfect Way', Scritti's most successful US single.

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