Excerpt - “What’s most striking, as those descriptions indicate, is the lack of aggression. My Majestic Star’s songs (as gauzy and atmospheric as Ideas Are the Answer gets these are still definitely songs) reach for the sky like all the best post-rock but you never get the sense he’s trying to blow your face off, even on the relatively high gear “Keep the Keys from Me.” Tellingly, that song is followed with the garbled monologue of “You Greet Me with Night Laughter,” where Mason’s penchant for obscuring the human voice again evokes more than it provokes. There’s a story in there somewhere, but it’s not really our story, and knowing it’s being told winds up being more important than eavesdropping.
“Carry the Breeze” evokes some of the gentler remixes on Mogwai’s Kicking a Dead Pig, but mostly Mason steers well clear of obvious influences. He manages to make music from relative isolation that like a lot of absolutely solo work tends towards the quiet and wounded, but Ideas Are the Answer is optimistic from the title on down; this a record that respects and honors our melancholy without ever falling for the fallacy that it’s a permanent state of affairs.”
