Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

Track: Bandicoot – ‘Dark Too Long’: bringing the glammy punk to Libertino

WHO ARE Bandicoot? Is the question on your lips, and even their own, if you judge by their social media handle across the various platforms. Their new single for Libertino,…

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Tracks: Hear ‘Mothra’ and ‘Ecce! Ego!’ ahead of Leon Vynehall’s new album for Ninja

NOTHING IS STILL, Leon Vynehall’s third album and his debut outing for Ninja Tune, absolutely elevated the British electronica explorer to the top echelons of cutting-edge creativity in the form;…

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Track: Brooks Williams, Findlay Napier, Boo Hewerdine and Kris Drever – ‘Farewell To Gold’: cult singers in quartet for a dream made reality

IT’S PRETTY much a cult, folky singer-songwriting dream; despite the lockdown and the all of it, that Cambridge Americana adept Brooks Williams, former The Bible! man Boo Hewerdine, Scotland’s Findlay…

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Album review: Samuel Sharp – ‘Patterns Various’: diaristic, timeless sax explorations

Patterns Various sits in a emerging tradition of very beautiful single-instrument essays; a very personal journey, and a very English one, captures its moments so well that people will be sure to revisit it for decades to come

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News: Andy Bell announces trio of EPs and a compilation; see the GLOK remix of ‘Indica’

RIDE guitarist, singer and sonic explorer Andy Bell has announced a series of three EPs and a compilation to keep you satiated with leftfield shoegazey pop supreme right the way…

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Track: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – ‘I See God’: that old time religion beautifully recast for guitar and banjo

KEYS, the soon-come long-playing conversation between Chicago’s Bill MacKay on guitar and North Carolina’s Nathan Bowles at the banjo, ranges back and forth across the great bluegrass and guitar soli…

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Track: Mike Lazarev – ‘Finale’: Ukrainian composer drops the final curtain from next week’s delicious mini-album

THE IDEA of a soundtrack to an imaginary film is something we here at Backseat Mafia love straight off the bat, right back to when we fell for Barry Adamson’s…

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See: The Lottery Winners feat. Louise Wener – ‘Bad Things’: a sweet pop drop with sadness in its heart

LANCASHIRE’S Lottery Winners, who we last touched base with last month when they got it on with Frank Turner for the cans-aloft-in-a-field anthem in the making, “Start Again”, have got…

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Album review: Cheval Sombre – ‘Time Waits For No One’: a luxuriant, timeless and meditative return

Time Waits For No One is not without its darknesses, its sadnesses, but they're approached with the calm, supplicant grace that sits right in the heart of such feelings; and it is bloody beautiful. It's an amulet, a perfect prescription; you can use it to ward off the world. Really, do

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Track: Resplandor – ‘Adore’: exceptional shoegaze from the Netherlands, via Lima

IF YOU love the way shoegaze can really thrill, really transport, with that amazing combination of sweetly abrasive guitar and blurry, beautiful vocals – less the dream pop thing, for…

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