Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

Album review: GoGo Penguin – ‘GGP/RMX’: deus ex Mancunia as the jazz trio take the remixes album to new heights

THE EXCELLENT, leftfield Mancunian trio GoGo Penguin, who work out in the truly creative zones where dancefloor and intelligence and jazz bump into each other, decided they could be lifelong…

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Album review: TEKE::TEKE – ‘Shirushi’: a deliciously wonky, delectably trippy psych debut

RULE one: Japanese bands do brilliant, brilliant things with guitars: this is just fact. From the mind-blowing chaos of Melt-Banana to the heavy psych stylings of Acid Mothers Temple and…

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See: The lyric video for the cosmic Americana pop drop of Lou Barlow’s ‘Love Intervene’

WITH a first solo album in nigh on six years just cusping the horizon – it’s called Reason to Live, it’ll be out at the end of the month on Joyful Noise Recordings,…

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Album review: Dragon Welding – ‘The Lights Behind The Eyes’: a new ambient folk for a beleaguered island from The Wolfhounds’ six-string sufi

IF YOU consider yourself a fan of great British guitar music and you haven’t investigated the canon of East London-Essex borderlands’ The Wolfhounds, then jeez, do you ever need to…

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Soundtrack of Our Lives: breaking psych-folk troubadour E.R. Jurken takes us a for a trip through the music of his life

THEY loved what they heard so much they set up a label just for him. Yep, that’s the tale of E.R. (Ed to his friends) Jurken’s slow peregrination towards a…

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See: The Native – ‘In My Mind’: Plymouth’s indie five-piece’s euphoric best yet

PLYMOUTH’S The Native may only be young – their first single, “Chasing Highs”, only came out in August gone, so their recording career is still a few weeks off its…

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Album review: UNKNOWN ME – ‘BISHINTAI’: a delightful, candy-coloured ambient trip

BISHINTAI is a delightful album, candy-colour bright, beamed from some offworld where fantastic cuboid furniture and hanging egg chairs are the norm; it will add a little brain-clearing wasabi to the most humdrum and dun day. If you've ever swooned for the Sushi 3003 and 4004 compilations; for Air at their most "Sexy Boy" cosmic and and most especially definitely, the bright retro-futurism of The Gentle People - then boy, is this album ever for you

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Album review: Matt Robertson – ‘Enveleau’: analogue grandeur, ambience and acid

If old-skool British acid and ambient techno floats your boat, and let's face it, it's such a halcyon era for the genre, mostly never bettered; get yourself Enveleau. Maybe only the redoubtable Mr Hopkin is operating with this deliciousness in the field

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Album review: Conrad Clipper – ‘Heron’s Book Of Dreams’: a pseudonymous, textural ambient gem

Heron's Book of Dreams is glorious. It knows what to do, it knows what you need, and never aims for cheap and maximal when stripping back, excellent arrangement and contrast can do the job. Think a slightly more abrasively edged, more intimate A Winged Victory For The Sullen. A very beautiful record for people who love the interstices where 'flesh and blood' instrumentation gets it on with drones. Delightful.

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JJJJJerome Ellis signs to NNA Tapes and shares the infinite music of ‘Fountain #3’

Composer, translator, poet, and performer, JJJJJerome Ellis has signed for Brooklyn’s curating imprint of the beautifully leftfield, NNA Tapes (a label which is also home to other artists we’ve delighted…

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