King Biscuit Time - Disc of the day

King Biscuit Time
Black Gold

(No Style, 2006)

Ex-Beta Band front brain trembles in the psychic fall-out of their split, makes boss LP.

For Steve Mason, there was ruin and bafflement before and after his one long-player as King Biscuit Time. Before, because his previous group The Beta Band had abandoned their brave cosmic experimentation due to debt and being skint, and split in 2004. Then, just as Black Gold was ready for release, Mason cancelled a tour, said he was resigning from music and disappeared. Listen to the psychedelic, techno-rustic sounds of Black Gold though, and you can excuse such potty behaviour. With surface restraint but much activity beneath, it’s a mesmeric, Beta Band-esque blend of beats clapped out on woodblocks, electronic noise, guitars and dub melodica, with half-spoken, half-sung lyrics that continually wonder where love and companionship have gone. The black dog is constantly gnawing - “How do you find your heart when you feel no love?” wonders Kwangchow, disconnectedly, while the Stone Roses-y All Over You’s chorus of “loneliness… sadness… joyless… lifeless” self-diagnoses depression. But still it glows with uncanny inner light. Mason tells his narratives of quasi-mystic heightened awareness – he variously touches on the universe, the speed of light and standing at the hand of God – as if they’re in danger of being lost (“I feel that if I slip and fall then you’ll forget about all these things,” goes Paperhead, a song that curiously echoes Gerry Rafferty’s hit tune Baker Street). Incidentally, Mason’s retirement wasn’t to last, and he’s now fit and working again making twisty, Hot Chip-leaning electro as Black Affair.

Ian Harrison

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 24/04/2008