Mark Stewart, the musical agitator and yelping frontman of the wildly innovative, dub-infused post-punk act The Pop Group, died Friday.

The death over the weekend of legendary record man Seymour Stein has unleashed a torrent of heartfelt appreciations from the musicians he championed.

Author Richard Evans delves deeply into “a true golden age of British pop” in his just-published book “Listening to the Music the Machines Make.”

In a move that once might have seemed unthinkable, New Order — a flagship act of the iconic Factory Records imprint — has signed to the equally legendary Mute label, long home to contemporaries Depeche Mode and Erasure, as the group continues to work on its new album.

As we previously reported, Mute Records this fall will celebrate Slovenian avant-garde industrial group Laibach’s “unique take on the art of the cover version” with a new 15-track compilation called ‘An Introduction To.. Laibach / Reproduction Prohibited,’ which will include a newly recorded version of The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette.”

As part of EMI Music’s ongoing Electrospective campaign designed to celebrate the history of electronic music, Mojo magazine recently convened a roundtable discussion of the genre featuring, among others, synthpop pioneers such as Mute Records; Daniel Miller, Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and OMD’s Andy McCluskey.

British communications agency ditto is celebrating The Normal’s ‘Warm Leatherette’ — the first release by Mute Records, and ‘the record that started everything’ — by commissioning this ‘re imagining’ of Daniel Miller’s classic 1978 track, with Really O’Reilly providing new production and ‘electro-lady’ Georgie piping in with vocals.

Short Circuit Presents Mute wrapped up last night in London with a Vince Clarke extravaganza, which included a set with Erasure, an appearance by Alison Moyet for what might have been Yazoo’s final performance and a surprise reunion with Feargal Sharkey to play the lone single the duo recorded as The Assembly.

A parade of classic synthpop and electronic artists including Erasure, Yazoo, Nitzer Ebb and four current and former members of Depeche Mode will take the stage in London this weekend to celebrate the hugely influential Mute Records label at the annual Short Circuit Electronic Music Festival.

The promoters of the Gary Numan-headlined Back To The Phuture concerts taking place this April in the U.K. are offering up a pair of free tickets to the London event — also featuring John Foxx and a DJ set by Daniel Miller — for one lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs reader.

Former bandmates Vince Clarke and Martin Gore — who parted ways professionally nearly 30 years ago when Clarke quit Depeche Mode — are working together again on a ‘techno-ish’ track that could be destined for the forthcoming Erasure album.

Erasure’s Andy Bell talks to Slicing Up Eyeballs about ‘Non-Stop,’ his dancefloor-ready second solo album that, in some ways, is actually Bell’s third, after his record label forced him to scrap a Stephen Hague-produced effort that ‘sounded too much like Erasure.’

Tweet Earlier this month, the directors and producer of  “The Posters Came From the Walls” — a new documentary exploring the depths of Depeche Mode […]