Zachary Mason landed a genuine coup for “Man Of The Universe,” out September 18th: production from Stuart Epps, the UK veteran whose fifty-plus-year résumé includes work with Elton John, Oasis, George Harrison and Led Zeppelin. Mason reached out to Epps in June 2026 with three demos, and after Epps praised all three, this was the one chosen to record, with Epps himself contributing drums, bass, organ and backing vocals on top of the production. It’s a strong pairing for a song that leans into space rock and psychedelia, echoing Mason’s earlier Sci-Fi EP “5…4…3…2…1…” with a pulp-magazine throwback story about a man roaming the galaxy, battling aliens and space pirates, and generally living out the kind of unapologetically fun science-fiction fantasy that populated old genre magazines.
Musically, this sounds like Bowie, and not just because of the space theme. The production and the vocal performance are the two elements that push that comparison the hardest, giving the track a genuinely glammy, cosmic sensibility rather than leaning on the sci-fi lyrics alone to carry that association. Epps clearly understood the assignment here, shaping a sound that supports Mason’s storytelling without ever feeling like a costume borrowed for the occasion.
Mason has been prolific since 2021, building a catalogue of 200 to 250 demos on a home setup and racking up over a million streams, press coverage from outlets like SPIN and Rolling Stone En Español, and an ISC semifinal placement along the way. “Man Of The Universe” feels like a natural next step in that trajectory, a genuinely fun single elevated by a producer with the pedigree to make its bigger ambitions actually land.
