Scritti Politti

Scritti Politti is the primary vehicle for Welsh singer/songwriter Green Gartside. Few figures in pop music can claim Gartside's distinctive credentials: an artist who began in London's subcutaneous underground in the late '70s but ultimately rose to the top of the U.K. pop charts, a serious devotee of linguistic structuralism who can hold his own in a conversation with his friend, arch deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, and a handsome, dreamy-eyed gentleman who has, in the opinion of one critic, "a voice that's eternally 14 years old" yet nonetheless stands six foot six in his stocking feet. Gartside grew up in South Wales, a brainy underachiever and, in his teen years, a member of the Young Communist League. Through the League he met future Scritti Politti bassist Nial Jinks. Gartside earned a scholarship to Leeds Art College, where he made the acquaintance of Scritti's future drummer, Tom Morley. In June 1978 Gartside and Morley dropped out of school and took up a flat in London, and Gartside invited Jinks to come out and join them. Inspired by the example of another little-known English group of that time, Desperate Bicycles, Scritti Politti made their first record when they were barely three months old, hand printing the covers and rubber-stamping the labels themselves. This record, Skank Bloc Bologna, sold a surprising 2,500 copies in this handmade edition. Afterward, Rough Trade took it over, ultimately moving about 15,000 copies of the title. Although listed as a member of the group on records and in photographs, Matthew Kay was the band's business manager and had little to contribute to Scritti Politti's music. At this stage, Scritti Politti's sound was scrappy, taut, and forthrightly experimental in style, utilizing abrupt changes, rhythmic displacements,...