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.