Jeremy Mason: Distorted Vision (self released)

Expat Mason was bassist in the Kiwi punk band Kill the Fake Patient (2005-07) but clearly the Northern Hemisphere has blown a new wind through him: he's now an acoustic/alt.folk singer living in a one bedroom flat in Glasgow and this self-produced EP of songs written in Wellington and London (available here) is the first flickering of a new direction. An album follows apparently.

As a debut it is slightly self-conscious but is certainly full of promise: Confusion Cycle throws out some memorable lines and Mason has a gentle voice which neatly undercuts some stark and dark imagery. His finger picking sounds very confident also (The Labyrinth) and the gently driving Away We Go has a lyrical economy which suggets a path he might follow. He knows a way with a gentle melody in the manner of Neil Halstead.

Six bedroom tracks are perhaps too few to make any grand prediction about what Mason might have to offer, but there is more than enough going on here to whet the appetite for a full length album with maybe just a touch more musical embellishment or expansiveness.

Very appealing.