Steve Mason - Monkey Minds In The Devils Time LP

Steve Mason`s 2010 album Boys Outside was relatively straightforward; it was as if, in discarding his various monikers to record under his own name, he also shed a little of his personality. Monkey Minds couldn t be more different: its 20 tracks form a jagged collage of colliding sounds, among them dub and gospel, country and rap, an unsettling clip of Tony Blair talking about Libya, and the screech of tyres in a Formula One race. It seems uneven on the surface, but dig deeper and everything coalesces into an intricately constructed autobiography, covering Masons political concerns, the roots of his depression, and his hopes for humanity. A riff sketched out in an interlude will become the backbone of a song; a lyric from one track will resurface in another as Mason probes ideas of generosity, loneliness and companionship. Never Be Alone is loose-limbed, Fight Them Back pulses fiercely, Come to Me radiates compassion: the whole is absorbing, invigorating, thr illingly distinct. (guardian)