I'm not a huge fan of Beta Band*. I enjoyed The Three EPs and...one of their other albums, but, as I'm not really a drug person, I don't think I fully got them.
If you've heard Beta Band, you've heard Steve Mason's Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time. It's less electronic and potty and more political and pretentious, but, other than that, yeah.
There are some stand outs here, such as "Lonely", "Fire!" and some other tracks, the names of which I forget because a lot of this sounds alike to me; both like itself and like Beta Band. It's disappointing to see how little Mason's sonic scope has expanded since Beta Band dis(Beta)banded in 2004, but, whatever, I bought this on a whim along with about twelve other albums so...yeah, whatever.
As far as the lyrical content, I've been told that this album is politically charged.
Okay.
Cool.
Also, about half the tracks on the album are more soundscapes or interludes rather than full blown songs.
I suppose I should say that what he's doing is interesting, but not the way he chose to do it.
If you love Beta Band but wish they had used less electronics, then this is right up your alley.
Straight up: I mainly listened to this to find tracks that would fit on a Gorillaz playlist.
And there are some...if Gorillaz ever made a Medieval album**.
This is the music from the opera that Albarn wrote about Dr. John Dee, the alchemist, mathematician astronomer and other stuff back in the 1500's.
Here's the Wiki entry.
He was a pretty interesting guy.
Listening to this music without context was mucho dislocatingo, but, for my purposes, that really didn't matter.
I don't like opera, but that's only because I've never really listened to it because it annoys me so...yes. Complications.
Aside from the Albarn songs, which I enjoyed, I was actually quite smitten with one other track called "Watching The Fire That Waltzed Away", which features this dude singing in crazy falsetto...like...no balls on this guy at all.
Much like Albarn's funk project, Rocket Juice and The Moon, I don't think I'm the intended audience for this.
That Venn diagram would include fans of alchemy, opera and Gorillaz.
However, in this brave new world of people who have intimate relations with balloons***, I'm pretty sure that demographic not only exists, but that they absolutely love this album.
Damon, please get over your shit with Jamie and make some more fucking Gorillaz music.
* Mason founded and was one half of Beta Band.
** Which I would buy.
*** They're called "looners", look it up.
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