Pitchfork

The Pop Group have one of the most misleading band names in rock history. While some of the Bristol outfit's tunes are certainly catchy, their name does no justice to the sheer number of genres pillaged, deconstructed, and amalgamated in songs like "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" and "Forces of Oppression". On the other hand, "The Funk, Free Jazz, and Dub Masquerading as Post-Punk Group" doesn't have much of a ring to it.

Pop Group frontman Mark Stewart has little chance to be so misleading in ON/OFF: Mark Stewart From the Pop Group to the Maffia, a documentary that "retraces the singer's steps and paths from the early days of the Pop Group right up to the present," according to the YouTube description of the Tøni Schifer-directed film's official trailer.

In addition to interview and live footage of Stewart (as well as some pretty funny clips of him sporadically dancing and breaking into song), ON/OFF supplements Stewart's story through interviews with Nick Cave, Douglas Hart (the Jesus & Mary Chain), Mick Harvey (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds), Jon Spencer, Daniel Miller (Mute Records/The Normal), writer Simon Reynolds, and Stewart's bandmates in both the Pop Group and Mark Stewart and the Maffia.

ON/OFF will tour select film festivals starting in August, and Monitorpop will release the documentary on DVD this fall.