Best electronic albums of 2020: three

3 – Mason Bee – Play Flights (Pollen Kit)

The popular techno band Plaid built up a formidable reputation over the years, playing cool beats on their disco machines to Orbital and The Black Dog fans. "That chord sequence sounds a bit off," we'd yell over the music, and we'd love it.

What many of their fans don't know is that throughout their career, they've been accompanied by a bee. It was often hard to see, what with the mirrorballs and dry ice, but the techno band Plaid wouldn't be seen anywhere without their busy little bee.

There have been a few close calls at their live gigs. The Southbank Centre has a particularly aggressive air conditioning system, and they nearly had their bee sucked off. There was also a near miss once, backstage with DJ Food and a rolled-up newspaper. But generally, their bee— oh hold on—

Apparently, it's a person. Not a bee. Sorry. Should have checked, I suppose. Please ignore everything I have written so far.

Benet 'Mason Bee' Walsh has been a key part of Plaid forever, with so much of their sound defined by his plaintive guitars. Now he has stepped into the solo spotlight for this delightful instrumental album. It's folky, it's gentle, it's quite 70s. But this is the guy from Plaid, and THOSE chords and THAT signature bite is present. There's so much going on. I fell for this album in a big way.

I've banged on about Play Flights for Electronic Sound, saying he's "taken the harmony from Plaid and drizzled it in honey" before dropping the necessary cheesy line that this was "the bee's knees". For Picky B*stards, I said it "evokes pastoral fields, sunny afternoons in the ‘70s, and picnics in slightly-alien forests" before going on about poop too much.

What I haven't explained is the emotional tug this album has for me. When Covid hit, my world turned briefly upside-down. I didn't cope with the stress, and although I was lucky enough to be able to pivot my job in events, things got very wonky quickly. 

Yes, I know, boo-hoo me, let's all get out our tiny violins! I do realise I've had things easy.

However, just before that hit, I was caning this album, Like, proper Spotify Wrapped caning. And that's relevant. Because when I think back to the "normal times", this album is the soundtrack. When I listen to Play Flights, I feel a mixture of comfort and grief. For that reason, and because of the cracking noises Mason Bee makes, this album makes me wibble when I listen to it.

Yep. Crying at a bee. This is what I have become.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Fifteen questions for Fat Roland (contains raisins)

This blog post is about me. Which is why it's accompanied by a picture of me.

There's a 30-question Facebook quiz doing the rounds, so for the sake of content, here are my answers. I should point out that I deleted half of the questions: they were so inane, they made me want to go to a wedding reception with Westlife. Here, readers, are 15 questions about me.

1. Who are you named after? Not a who. A what. I'm named after a Roland JP-8000 synthesiser. I am not named after the chubby lad from Grange Hill, although there are worse people I could be named after. I could be called Dan Widdecombe.

2. Last time you cried? I cry at everything. Movie endings, children's choirs, wasps, anything. Jojo Rabbit had me in floods of tears. Seeing arbitrary insanity through a ten-year-old's eyes, in appropriately dis-tonal primary colours (comedy Hitler, rabbit blatherings, "clones"), made this a deeply moving and exhilarating film. Roberto Benigni meets Wes Anderson. Go see.

3. Do you like your handwriting? Actually, I do. It's a bit cartoony. As a child, I refused to learn joined-up cursive as it made no sense to my bookworm brain. Books didn't do cursive, so I shouldn't either. I'd have good handwriting for cartoon strip speech bubbles.

4. Would you do a bungee jump? Plop off. I'd hit the ground so hard, I'd come out in China.

5. What is your favourite kind of cereal? When I do eat cereal, which isn't often, I plump for something with raisins. Got to love a raisin. It's one of those foodstuffs people really baulk at, but they're idiots. Smother me in raisins.

6. What is the first thing you notice about someone? Tentacles.

7. Rugby or football? Neither. Both sports remind me of the horror of school changing rooms, the bullying tackles designed to injure me for fun, the cold mud and rain. Also, each side should be given a ball to make everything easier.

8. What are you listening to right now? Finally a question relevant to my website. I'm currently enjoying Mason Bee's debut album Play Flights. He's the bloke who makes nice guitar sounds and bleepy melodics in Plaid, so it's like someone's taken all the harmony from Plaid and tied a big beautiful bow on it.

9. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? I've kept this question in here to show how bad the deleted questions were.

10. Favourite smell? Not this quiz, coz it stinks. It's all the cliche answers, I'm afraid. Cut grass, fresh bread, nice flowers, old books, kittens in blenders. Some people like the smell of babies or hair, which is weird. If you scratch this blog, it smells of warehouse raves.

11. Colour of your hair? Brown. Not a particularly interesting brown. A general hair brown. The colour of a horse that's just eaten two jars of Marmite. Like I say, not an interesting brown.

12. Scary movies or happy? I'll choose scary. Actually, I'm watching fewer scary films as I get older. Maybe the torrent of existential terror that is modern life has finally got under my skin. Boo! Was that scary? No? Okay, I'll choose happy.

13. Last movie you watched? That Armando Iannucci film about David Copperfield. More gentle than I expected; more Cock & Bull Story than Death Of Stalin. Dev Patel is perfect casting. Made me want to fly kites.

14. Favourite Holiday? Why is holiday capitalised? I don't really do holidays. If I wanted to lounge around doing nothing, I can do that at home. If I wanted to see interesting sights, I can use Google. If I wanted to sit by some water, I can find a puddle. Sigh. I'm happy, honest I am.

15. Best acid house tune? Great question. For years, my go-to acid tune was Fish & Chips by Hardfloor. It was on a Harthouse CD and I played it to smithereens. Amazing build-up. Sorry? What? Yes, you got me. This wasn't one of the original questions, I just wanted to big up Hardfloor. Is this over now? Can I go?

Photo: Alex Winton (taken at Mother's Ruin at Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester)