King Biscuit Time: C I AM 15

The bass: it kind of squelches and farts, burps and belches, pops and fizzes and trumps in a public bathroom. It’s there, not wholly pleasant and perhaps a little too in your face but nevertheless an essential remnant of some past necessary activity; said activity here being the dissolution of The Beta Band, obviously, for King Biscuit Time is, d’uh, one Steve Mason.

‘C I AM 15’ does very little for the majority of its duration but hang in the air like a proverbial bad smell; problem is that once you’ve taken a shine to it, it’s as hard to dislike as it is to ignore. A clean and crisp guitar battles gallantly against the aforementioned low-end guff, while Mason utters something in his trademark laconic moan. Politics rear their head, too: the rhymes of Top Cat close the song, all Blair this and Bush that. Sounds like a cliché on paper, but resonates resplendently through inner earphones.

‘C I AM 15’ is as eccentrically askew a slice of pop as you could hope for. It’s a curve ball from leftfield that was entirely expected, a rope-a-doped freak that planned its fall the whole time. It’s Mason, basically.

The bass: is quite nice, really.