Steve Mason has been garnering a reputation as an awkward cuss for many a moon now. I doubt there’s any self-respecting popster out there who doesn’t know of his predeliction for both timeless genius (the Beta Band’s “Three EPS” and chunks of their later work), his desire to distance himself from his work (the BB’s debut album) and his curious image changes, such as the bizarre Una-Bomber-style disguise he worked up for the release of his last single as KING BISCUIT TIME, the BMW-bothering, genre-straddling “C1AM15”.
So by now we should all realise that trying to predict/ second guess how Mason’s debut album as KBT might sound in advance would be about as successful as trying to capture greased eels squirming in a barrel riddled with holes. And this proves to be the deal, as the elegantly-titled, but probably politically-motivated “Black Gold” is quite a stylistic maze, though one you’ll get hours of scary fun from while trying to locate a path out of it.
Consequently, the best bet is simply to immerse yourself and come up for air as and when necessary and see how you feel when you catch your breath. Yes, some if it is truly tongue-twisting, not least the opening pairing of “CIAM15” and “Izzum”. The former remains every bit as inscrutable as an album track: all Bowie-ish acoustic strums, busy Beta-style beats, squidgy electronica and that highly politically-charged rap (“Mr.Bush you’re hidin’ a nuclear bomb, Mr.Blair you’re makin’ an invasion”) while “Izzum” rocks a similarly unlikely electro-reggae skank but if you pull it, it’s got melodicas on and a wide-eyed Mason noting “time and space is exaggerating/ the universe compensating.” Rich, but strange too.
Elsewhere, Mason continues to confound and delight in roughly equal measures. Occasionally, he lets a more fulsome band sound bubble to the surface, like the gentle, drifting, almost Shack-like psych-pop of “All Over You” where a clearly moved Mason repeats the mantra “loneliness, sadness, joyless, lifeless…before I met you” or on the almost linear (erk!) new single “Kwangchow”, with its’ gritty guitar riffs, dubby undertow and that determined “we are alive!” chorus.
|
These songs are surely Mason at his most open and approachable, but even when he’s being oblique he remains tantalising. The quite lovely “Way You Walk” shows Mason at his most vulnerable (“never had a feeling like this, no!”) and serenading over minimal beats, fragile acoustic guitar and subliminal basslines. It’s got elements of dub and the Super Furries and is wholly seductive, while the ghost of Augustus Pablo’s melodica again casts a shadow over the Dan Treacy-style sense of childlike wonder during “Impossible Ride” and the dislocated “Paperhead” which nicks its’ refrain (“and forget about everything”) from a song I know really well but can’t place for the life of me. Gaaahhh.
In typical Mason fashion, he signs off in the least likely way imaginable too. “Rising Son” is small, tender and evocative and exudes an aching melancholy which beguiles the more you listen, while the closing “Metalbiscuit” (all 1 minute 20 of it) with its’ tinkly keyboards and analogous wash sounds more like a refugee from the sessions for Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express.” And then that’s it. Oh, OK.
So inevitably you’re a little perplexed as you walk away, but – as usual with Steve Mason – you’ll soon be back again and the more you peel these layers, the more you see his seemingly Burroughs-ian cut-up pop methodology starting to fall gloriously into place and “Black Gold” revealing itself as a precious commodity after all.
|
