How can someone possibly be part of a band that wrote a song like Dry The Rain (you know, the one John Cusack plays in High Fidelity) and yet still wind up deep in debt, and even deeper in depression? Baffling.

After The Beta Band split, Mason had a stint as King Biscuit Time, before eventually breaking free and recording under his own name. There’s traces of the easy Beta Band groove on Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time, but between the incidental segments, spoken words and soundscapes, there are rousing anthems, and solid, safely alternative stylings that have made Mason a bit of a BBC 6 Music darling in 2013.