The Universe Makes Me Cry

Steve Mason is back with a new album and this achingly good new song- Planet Sizes. He knows his way round a tune and those signature multi-tracked, melancholic vocals are in full effect. What's it all about? I don't know... love and loss and redemption, the search for meaning in a random world.... It's very good.



Steve has made music under several names since the Beta Band split up. His last solo album (Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time, 2013) had two songs that were absolute brilliance- Fight Them Back and Come To Me- that I still play regularly. A few years before, 2008 I think, he made an album inspired by 80s electro using the name Black Affair. This was the standout track for me.

Sweet

B Is For Black Affair

Steve Mason's 2009 side project Black Affair was an 80s electro inspired job, which was great in small doses but wore a bit over the course of an entire lp. Still, in a field of his own is Steve Mason- most people wouldn't record let alone release an album like this, so far removed from what he's known for. This was one of the highlights.

Sweet

In a slightly belated tribute to United's 20th league title our picture shows Bobby Charlton, presumably in the aftermath of the Munich air disaster or an early anniversary of, with a cracking quiff. Bobby was present as a player for United's 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th league titles and he's still there, although he doesn't make the netting bulge anymore. The Premier League is a million miles from this picture. Yesterday's post-Beta Band group The Aliens had a song called Bobby's Song which I should've posted instead really.