WILLY MASON - Where The Humans Eat

Willy Mason is only twenty years old, and you'd certainly never guess it from his debut album: Willy has a voice well beyond his years and very clear ideas about how a record should sound in order to avoid falling into monotony.

This unworthy product of the Nineties clearly wasn't raised on Topexan, "Teen Spirit" and Nirvana, but rather on durum wheat bread, dust and Leonard Cohen. And thank goodness for that…

Having won over Bright Eyes, who immediately decides to make him his new drinking buddy (illegally, since Willy isn't old enough to drink yet) and take him on tour as an opening act, Willy Mason quickly manages to draw attention to himself, soon finding himself supporting, among others, Rosanne Cash and Evan Dando.

It was precisely during one of these shows that, last year, someone at the British station BBC1 decided to put "Oxygen" into rotation - the only track officially recorded at the time - which then pushed our man to record a full album.

The album was recorded in New York by Tom Schick. Willy plays most of the instruments himself, leaving the drum parts to his younger brother Sam, and it's the three of them who produce the record, with no outside input or opinions, making "Where The Humans Eat" an extremely homemade record, as you can tell even from the booklet, which, rather than containing lyrics dealing with universal woes or petty generational anxieties, features pictures of pets and childlike drawings.

Traditional American folk runs through this record from the first track to the last, flowing through the songs and shaping their moods.

The opening "Gotta Keep Movin'" comes across as almost aggressive toward the listener, with fast, repetitive music, but perhaps it's simply a way of grabbing attention before the catchy "All You Can Do".

"Still A Fly" sounds almost like a nursery rhyme, while the intimate "Where The Humans Eat" - just voice and classical guitar - offers a veiled, unexpected irony: finally, someone who smiles while singing!

The anachronistic "Fear No Pain" sounds as if it's arrived straight from the distant era when people "sang into a tin can". "Hard Hand To Hold" plods along, but only because the lyrics call for it, while "Letter #1" could easily be performed on a Broadway stage.

Another intimate moment comes with "Sold My Soul". The bluesy "Our Town" is lovely, "So Long" is compelling, and the already-familiar "Oxygen" is stark and biting.

The album closes effectively with "21st Century Boy", a hazy, atmospheric song after which only silence feels right.

This 21st-century kid owes a great deal to good old-fashioned singer-songwriter folk.

While we wait for a second effort to tell us whether this is talent or beginner's luck, for now we're impressed - and we'll be keeping an eye on him.

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30/04/2026