Black Affair, Pleasure Pressure Point

Steve Mason's idiosyncratic musical journey has taken him from the Beta Band's acoustic psychedelia to King Biscuit Time's politicised hip-hop, alternating between bouts of depression and bursts of creativity. His latest project finds him shifting tack again, emerging with a confident blend of Detroit techno, 1980s electro, break-up ruminations and S&M fantasies. Mason's self-confessed "darker side" is spun around - like a record, obviously - by keyboard melodies that could have graced Dead or Alive or Depeche Mode at their peak. Tak! Attack! could be a totalitarian Erasure, while the sublime Willshecome sounds like a dark subversion of Wham!'s Club Tropicana - and could easily be a hit.