steve mason - 'hardly go through'

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I like his new album a lot and I'm so pleased about that. His first solo album was quite sublime but thereafter he seemed to take a bit of a dip but this new album is quite something, it sounds like he's enjoying himself too. 

steve mason - 'planet sizes'

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I've been listening to a few tracks from the new album 'Meet The Humans' this afternoon and it's grown on me already. It has a fuller sound than I was expecting and this has come as a pleasant surprise, it sounds richer, fuller. Great stuff.

steve mason - 'all come down (acoustic version)'

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It doesn't get much better than this. Great music to listen to as I twiddle my thumbs at home all ready for Brighton's last home game of the season.

steve mason - 'come to me'

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From one of my must-have albums of the year, here is one of Britain's best singer-songwriters. His behemoth of an album (20 tracks long) is a definite grower and almost a concept album at times. 

steve mason and scroobius pip?

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Oh, hello.

hello soho

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My office has just relocated to very near Soho and I've been taking advantage of this by exploring the music shops nearby. There's a few well known ones, notably Sister Ray but also some smaller, mainly dance oriented record shops. I particularly like BM records. I looked in Sister Ray today and I was impressed with the range of tunes but to be honest the prices they were asking was a bit steep for a lot of stuff. It's all well and good them tarting up an album by marking it as 'rare' but I wouldn't say CDs are collectable in the same way as records are and the quality of some of the CD cases weren't great. I'm doing the shop a disservice here because it's the music that's important after all. I bought the following albums:

Felice Brothers - Celebration, Florida

Steve Mason and Dennis Bovell - Ghosts Outside

Holy Other - With U (this is an EP)

Interpol - Interpol

Mazzy Star - She Hangs Brightly

Rodney P - The Future

The last 3 albums were filling gaps in my collection. Christ knows why I never got round to buying Interpol's album last year. I should have got that at the time. I've always loved Hope Sandoval's voice and this Mazzy Star album is the only one I don't have. I'm glad I've got the set now. The Rodney P album was a completely random purchase. It was sitting there in the downbeat section, it looked quite groovy so I bought it. Time will tell if it's any good but I've got a very good success rate from random buys so I'm not going to stop even if this is a dud. 

The Holy Ghost EP is going to be a grower, I can tell. My newly-12 year old son described it as the opposite of minimal techno - kind of maximal. I know what he means as it has a lot of layers to it. I need to grow into this little number, I think.

Now onto the last two. The new Felice Brothers album - Celebration, Florida is quite simply excellent in every way. They go from strength to strength and cover so many bases with this long player. There's some old fashioned country and even a bit of yodelling, there's a sub-dancey 'I Feel Love' soundalike, there's everything. Buy it - you won't be disappointed.

I wish someone would upload the 'Dallas' track but this, the opening song ' Fire at the Pageant' is a lovely backup.

The other album is a Dennis Bovell dub remix of Steve Mason's Boys Outside album that the ex-Beta Band lead singer released last year. I think I mentioned it a few weeks back actually. It's co-produced by Richard X who also did the Foxbase Beta album a year or two back. I really wouldn't have thought that the deeply personal and haunting Boys Outside would have been a contender for a dub remix but bloody hell, this absolutely hits the spot. 

steve mason - I let her in

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I'm currently stuck on a broken down train and listening to Steve Mason's excellent "Boys Outside" album from last year. I've listened to the album quite a few times but this is the first time I've actually taken notice of the lyrics. Take this song for instance 'Let Her In' where Steve contemplates loves he will never have and children he will never have nor hold.