Steve Mason
★★★★
Brothers & Sisters
DOUBLE SIX. CD/DL/LP
Political defiance and polyrhythms on erstwhile Beta Band singer’s solo fifth.
Where 2019’s About The Light saw Steve Mason employ a more band-oriented sound, this successor finds him hooking up with Joy Crookes/ Celeste producer Tev’n for a return to a more electronicbased approach, with added global flavours (a “fuck you”, says Mason, to antiimmigration). The brooding, atmospheric No More, with its military snare groove and interjections from Pakistani singer Javed Bashir, rails against imperialism, while Mason explores his inner world on the slow, housey lament for departed friends and family that is Pieces Of Me. Best of all, the closing title track is a rallying cry to dormant ravers, which has the singer confessing, “I want to meet a dealer in the corner/I need to hug a stranger in the lights.” All in all, a winning, beats-driven combination of the personal and the universal.