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| Track list: 1. C I Am 15 2. Izzum 3. Impossible Ride 4. Kwangchow 5. Lefteye 6. All Over You 7. The Way You Walk 8. Paperhead 9. Rising Son 10. Metal Biscuit Running time: 39 minutes Released: 2006 |
I remember really loving this a while back - hard to believe it is still less than a decade old actually - and it only just missed out on selection to go into the wallet of CDs I keep in the car when I last changed up the bundle. However I do wonder if an extra few years may not have been kind to it or its place in my affections. Time to see!
This is my second listen of the day because I am too braindead to do anything else but feel a desire to not play games or watch TV... I am left with music. I toyed with the idea of messing about doing this as an Audiosurf log of the album for kicks but at the end of the day that would mean no comment on the listening itself. I am starting with a digression because the opening track is not really worth anything else. Every bit as weak as I remembered, C I Am 15 is not representative of the rest - or such is my memory. Bland rhythms and a guest rapper are not really what I was buying this disc for and they won't be missed.
Izzum is really where it starts. Pretty simple musically, it is the vocal style that makes it work - fast, peppered lines with barely a breath between them chanted as much as anything. Husky, framed by minimal music but given an ethereal, echoing quality. The sounds that are placed alongside this remain low key, and in contrast. Bass dark, treble rare but very light when it emerges. For what it's worth I'm already glad I didn't include this in the new selection for the car but not because I dislike this piece, its just not good driving music, and the album is on the short side anyway. The final rites of Izzum are a little repetitive, alas not knowing when to end is a very common fault in music. What picks up is a weird spacey sound, again structured so that Mason's voice fills the consciousness. I find it interesting how someone who doesn't really sing much has constructed everything around the vocal, so much so that if you took it away you would wonder what the hell the point of the tune was (as I do because the vocal ends early on in Impossible Ride). It isn't even as if the lyrics are stunning or deep. No, the appeal is all in the charisma with which they are imparted, a warm texture that wraps you up.
If I'm honest, the only reason I was considering Black Gold for the car was because my memory of the next track is so damn good. Kwangchow is electric, vital and so, so shonky. It really isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but I love it to bits. I suspect because it is very much like a misplaced Beta Band track in that it would fit right in on Heroes to Zeroes. Listening now, the track is nothing like as strong as my memory of it would imply but it still has something intangible that makes it just work. Lefteye starts with what sounds like a Western theme, something about the guitar loop that makes you think of dusty savanna and cacti, I guess it is the slightly uneven cadence that speaks to horses hooves. Again the appeal of the track is all in Mason's voice; even if the compositions aren't genius, how they are shaped for his singing really is. The synergy between the rhythms, melodies and vocal is as good as anything I can think of, the voice integrated seamlessly into a cocoon of music that feels empty and unnecessary whenever he is not signing.
I find myself not really remembering these tunes well; it's clearly been a while since I listened to any in earnest. All Over You is, after Kwangchow, perhaps the one I recall most clearly, a low key and simple guitar loop over a basic percussion but it manages to be catchy and affecting at the same time. Again, not a masterpiece by any means but a pretty little break up song nonetheless. This is rattling through, but then it is only a 40 minute album, and I had 2 tracks amount to more than that last week so... The Way You Walk takes until the first verse is delivered before it really kicks in. There is something in the roll of this tune that makes it work. Again here the elements that have been shunted together to produce the track are deceptively simple and the charm is all in the combination, with the chorus being particularly effective. I should detest its love-y dove-y tone and schmaltz but yet somehow I find myself swaying in time as I type. It's funny how things can make us see (or hear) the same thing very differently, eh? If this was anyone else I would run a mile... and yet.
Paperhead is more like the material on Mason's later offering, Boys Outside. That album is better than this one but I wouldn't call this track as effective as the last few... I think because the vocal feels further removed from the music here that at any point since the guest rapper muttered his last on track 1. Its all fairly low key, the brief interjection of a repeating guitar aside, before it ends rather abruptly. I find myself more glad with every minute of every track that I did not waste a wallet slot on this CD but I have little desire to get rid of anything other than C I Am 15 either. Rising Son gives me cause to question that statement as it fails to deliver anything interesting whilst providing what is quite a pleasant little loop to sway gently along with, and then we hit the final track. Metal Biscuit has a more electro sound, and is a short little outro more than anything else but its a bright little finish, upbeat and happy.
So, it's nothing like as good as I remember. Full of tracks that would be dull by anyone else. Made as a vehicle for a singer who doesn't sing much and yet... its also really nice when considering how it sits with Mason's other work. It clearly bridges the Betas to Boys Outside and even hints at the darker themed content of Pleasure Pressure Point in places.
This is my second listen of the day because I am too braindead to do anything else but feel a desire to not play games or watch TV... I am left with music. I toyed with the idea of messing about doing this as an Audiosurf log of the album for kicks but at the end of the day that would mean no comment on the listening itself. I am starting with a digression because the opening track is not really worth anything else. Every bit as weak as I remembered, C I Am 15 is not representative of the rest - or such is my memory. Bland rhythms and a guest rapper are not really what I was buying this disc for and they won't be missed.
Izzum is really where it starts. Pretty simple musically, it is the vocal style that makes it work - fast, peppered lines with barely a breath between them chanted as much as anything. Husky, framed by minimal music but given an ethereal, echoing quality. The sounds that are placed alongside this remain low key, and in contrast. Bass dark, treble rare but very light when it emerges. For what it's worth I'm already glad I didn't include this in the new selection for the car but not because I dislike this piece, its just not good driving music, and the album is on the short side anyway. The final rites of Izzum are a little repetitive, alas not knowing when to end is a very common fault in music. What picks up is a weird spacey sound, again structured so that Mason's voice fills the consciousness. I find it interesting how someone who doesn't really sing much has constructed everything around the vocal, so much so that if you took it away you would wonder what the hell the point of the tune was (as I do because the vocal ends early on in Impossible Ride). It isn't even as if the lyrics are stunning or deep. No, the appeal is all in the charisma with which they are imparted, a warm texture that wraps you up.
If I'm honest, the only reason I was considering Black Gold for the car was because my memory of the next track is so damn good. Kwangchow is electric, vital and so, so shonky. It really isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but I love it to bits. I suspect because it is very much like a misplaced Beta Band track in that it would fit right in on Heroes to Zeroes. Listening now, the track is nothing like as strong as my memory of it would imply but it still has something intangible that makes it just work. Lefteye starts with what sounds like a Western theme, something about the guitar loop that makes you think of dusty savanna and cacti, I guess it is the slightly uneven cadence that speaks to horses hooves. Again the appeal of the track is all in Mason's voice; even if the compositions aren't genius, how they are shaped for his singing really is. The synergy between the rhythms, melodies and vocal is as good as anything I can think of, the voice integrated seamlessly into a cocoon of music that feels empty and unnecessary whenever he is not signing.
I find myself not really remembering these tunes well; it's clearly been a while since I listened to any in earnest. All Over You is, after Kwangchow, perhaps the one I recall most clearly, a low key and simple guitar loop over a basic percussion but it manages to be catchy and affecting at the same time. Again, not a masterpiece by any means but a pretty little break up song nonetheless. This is rattling through, but then it is only a 40 minute album, and I had 2 tracks amount to more than that last week so... The Way You Walk takes until the first verse is delivered before it really kicks in. There is something in the roll of this tune that makes it work. Again here the elements that have been shunted together to produce the track are deceptively simple and the charm is all in the combination, with the chorus being particularly effective. I should detest its love-y dove-y tone and schmaltz but yet somehow I find myself swaying in time as I type. It's funny how things can make us see (or hear) the same thing very differently, eh? If this was anyone else I would run a mile... and yet.
Paperhead is more like the material on Mason's later offering, Boys Outside. That album is better than this one but I wouldn't call this track as effective as the last few... I think because the vocal feels further removed from the music here that at any point since the guest rapper muttered his last on track 1. Its all fairly low key, the brief interjection of a repeating guitar aside, before it ends rather abruptly. I find myself more glad with every minute of every track that I did not waste a wallet slot on this CD but I have little desire to get rid of anything other than C I Am 15 either. Rising Son gives me cause to question that statement as it fails to deliver anything interesting whilst providing what is quite a pleasant little loop to sway gently along with, and then we hit the final track. Metal Biscuit has a more electro sound, and is a short little outro more than anything else but its a bright little finish, upbeat and happy.
So, it's nothing like as good as I remember. Full of tracks that would be dull by anyone else. Made as a vehicle for a singer who doesn't sing much and yet... its also really nice when considering how it sits with Mason's other work. It clearly bridges the Betas to Boys Outside and even hints at the darker themed content of Pleasure Pressure Point in places.
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