Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

Album review: Various artists – ‘Home – Volume One curated by Ali Tillett’: a beautifully tessellated, warming set of old-skool chillout

Y’KNOW, it’s not just the people out front – the bands, the writers, the DJs – who know a thing or three about music; there’s plenty of people quietly working…

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Track: Lady Wray pitches up with soul words of wisdom on her latest 7″, ‘Through It All’

SNARES crack and shuffle, a bass holds it tight with that characteristic Leon Michels melodicism; a backing chorus brings the timeless harmonies, and Lady Wray herself pitches up, lending a…

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Album review: Cluster – ‘Cluster 71’: the German electronica scene on the cusp of breaking through, lovingly reissued

AS WELL as hosting a whole stable of contemporary bands that are mainly spinning in the leftfield electronics and synthpop galaxies, Hamburg’s Bureau B has also been doing sterling work…

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Album review: Mumble Tide – ‘Everything Ugly’: a short, sweet-as mini-album burst from the insouciant Bristolians on their way to massive things

MUMBLE TIDE have a sweet and unusual back story: the Bristol bedroom pop duo of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers first met through a Gumtree ad which singer Gina had…

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Album review: Jim Wallis & Nick Goss – ‘Pool’: immersive, ocean-going, pastoral ambience

MODERN NATURE might be flying under your radar, but the Bella Union band who’ve just one full-length and one-mini album to their name – 2019’s How To Live and last…

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See: If your android’s paranoid, The Boy From Space’s ‘Positive Affirmation For Robots’ may be just the seasonal tonic

ALTHOUGH nominally hailing from the Wiltshire city of Salisbury, The Boy From Space – the trio of cosmic travellers Marshall Ward, Frant, and SuperDave – have far less earthbound concerns.…

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Track: Swoon for the Mediterranean cafe romance of Violetta Zironi & Ed Prosek’s ‘Come What May’

VIOLETTA ZIRONI is a delicate and lovely cantate from Correggio, in northern Italy’s Po Valley; she’s been releasing digital singles and EPs for nine years or so. More recently she’s…

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Track: The Mother Hips examine a soured, bruised love in the riffin’ roots rock of ‘Clay Mask Clown’

WITH the first recorded cover version of their entire roots-rockin’ career, their cover of Anne Murray’s “I Don’t Want To Drive You Away”, just fading in the dust of the…

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News: Erland Cooper releases his chorally collaborative ‘Egilsay’ EP: see a making-of film and find out more about his debuting silent movie score performance

MAGISTERIAL Orcadian composer Erland Cooper has released his second choral collaboration with the Shards ensemble, an EP focussing on one of Orkney’s northern islands, Egilsay, featuring four tracks of and…

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Track: Belgium’s North African jazz explorers Black Flower drop the perfumed title track of January’s ‘Magma’ for your delectation

THE WORLD of Belgian Eastern jazz outfit Black Flower is a well-woven and beautiful one; the quintet, shortly to unveil their sixth full-length album for Ghent’s rather groove-obsessed Sdban Ultra…

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