“People forget that John Lennon was a political animal,” said Alan McGee, selling the politicised zeal behind Steve Mason’s false-dawn comeback as King Biscuit Time in 2006. That album, Black Gold – released on McGee’s Poptones imprint – featured the George Bush-baiting dancehall skank of C I AM 15; but mostly a lot of fine future-folk, the kind that typified Mason’s previous outfit, The Beta Band. His fans could be forgiven for forgetting he possessed a righteous political polemic with subsequent releases, especially his attempt to corner the Hot-Chip-fan-partial-to-a-bit-of-bondage demographic with the Black Affair project. Angry and socially conscious he remains, though. Monkey Minds in the Devil’s Time, a sprawling, beautiful, brain-belch of an album, is an hour-long testament to this. It works brilliantly as lo-fi movements in music segue into fuller, fleshed-out songs exemplified by The Old Problem, a haunting spoken word piece that shuffles into Lie Awake. “At 15 years old I had to know / What makes you fail and what makes you grow,” coos Mason over descending bass and guitars that sit on a bed of digital mulch. It’s a profound, affecting opener, light years from The Beta Band Rap. [Source]
New Music United 