Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

See: The video for Matt Emery’s ‘Raindrops And Blood Spurts’: the scarlet fire of battle as reimagined for solo cello

THE EXCELLENT Surrey composer Matt Emery, a leading light over at Injazero Records for four years or so now working at the more deliciously experimental edges of modern composition, is…

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See: Rachel Sermanni – ‘Swallow Me’: graceful, spiritual and lighter than air, it’s the title track from her June EP

BRINGING new life into the world and fresh hope for a budding spring, Strathspey folkie Rachel Sermanni is all set to drop her first EP in what feels like too…

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Track: Portico Quartet’s gliding ‘Terrain II (edit)’ unveils a three-part suite of a new album in late May

PORTICO QUARTET, whose Jack Wyllie we last encountered in these pages at the end of last summer with his exhilarating Afro-ambient project, Paradise Cinema, reconvened at their East London base…

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News: Seefeel’s mid-90s’ Warp and Rephlex material gets repressed, expanded and there’s a new compilation too; hear the Autechre remix of ‘Spangle’

SEEFEEL, the brilliant British dub-ambient-electronica outfit who recorded beautiful, eerie and hypnotic work for Too Pure, Warp and Rephlex through the Nineties are the subject of a long-overdue reissue campaign,…

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See: The superfly retro video for A Certain Ratio’s ‘Keep It Together’

THE WHOLLY rejuvenated, fully on the groove A Certain Ratio have dropped another track from the forthcoming ACR:EPA, the first of a series of EPs following in the slipstream of…

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Track: Possum invite you to the psych ‘Gala At The Universe City’ – climb aboard and get your head ready for their second album

TORONTO PSYCH-space explorers Possum are gearing up for their second album in July for Ideé Fixe, and if you’re at all down with the du-jour King Gizzardy multicoloured six-string swirl,…

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See: Attawalpa – ‘Please Take Care’: Prince-like suave grooves herald London producer’s new EP

SUAVE groove; deep, profoundly bass vocal hooks, a smooth and implicit funk that crosses over into indie with a twanging hook – is that your bag? If so, please gather…

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See: Jade Jackson – ‘6FT Changes’: a Californian country lament for the disconnect of social distancing

JADE JACKSON, the husky-voiced country singer-songwriter who’s been making waves with her particular caress of the country form since Gilded, her 2017 debut for ANTI-, has dropped a softly haunting…

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Album review: Christine Ott – ‘Time To Die’: French composer returns to Gizeh for a modern compositional masterclass

Without a doubt one of the most potent voices in modern composition today, Christine Ott is as happy to push right out into dark, even industrial-infused experimenta as she is to play a straight bat with absolute confidence in the deeper classical tradition and the wider avant-garde palette; she can do it all, if she chooses, and when she breathes the ondes Martenot into life; there really is no one to touch her

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Album review: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – ‘Keys’: pull up a pew for bluegrass instrumental delight

You know what the best thing about Keys is; for all its intimacy, the focus wholly on how the two players and their instruments mesh,a real joy in creation rings through. William Tyler, Black Twig Pickers, Jack Rose fans; please come on over and pull up a pew

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