Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

ALBUM REVIEW: Joachim Spieth – ‘Ousia’: tronica sound design to fall deep into

Joachim Spieth's Ousia finesses current tronica-ambient thinking with some very deep and elemental sound design. Peer closer and you'll find it hard not to fall in

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SEE: John Carpenter – ‘The Dead Walk’; album follows for Sacred Bones in February

LEGENDARY film music writer John Carpenter still has so much to say; so many eerie atmospheres to evoke. The composer of such industry-standard soundtracks as the Halloween series, The Fog…

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NOT FORGOTTEN: Snub TV: when British telly had a decent indie strand

JANUARY 9, 1989. Perhaps not the most auspicious date in world history, though there would be more epochal happenings later in the year, of course. The day dawned with the…

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SEE: Robert Glasper feat. Denzel Curry – ‘This Changes Everything’: Grammy nominee’s future rhymes

HOT OFF the back of his recent, Grammy-nominated Fuck Yo Feelings mixtape (it was in the running for Best Progressive R&B Album), genre-spanning Houston writer and producer Robert Glasper has dropped…

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TRACK: 박혜진 Park Hye Jin & Nosaj Thing – ‘Clouds’: capping a fine year for Ninja

IT’S BEEN quite the year for LA’s South Korean rapper 박혜진 Park Hye Jin, who’s been dropping coolly sophisticated breaks right the way across the twelvemonth. Check her recent retake…

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TRACK: Zola Jesus beautifully refashions the Armenian folk standard, ‘Krunk’

ZOLA JESUS has gone back to her roots with a beautiful and deep take on the Armenian folk standard, “Krunk”; be enraptured by our embed herein. The track was originally…

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SEE: The video for the souljazz noir of Madison McFerrin’s ‘Hindsight’

COOL-AS Brooklyn imprint Mexican Summer, which has played host to artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never and Best Coast, has been running a lovely diversion from all the nutsness this…

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TRACKS: John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas and Greg Coates – ‘Greener Pools’ and ‘City Maggot’: Osees bods steps out into jazz-psych impro

IF YOU thought a mere four albums in 2020 – the twin suns of Protean Threat and its through-the-looking-glass rerub Panther Rotate, the limited Metamorphose and the cassette-only Levitation Sessions…

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TRACK: Kathryn Williams & Carol Ann Duffy – ‘Snow Angel’: collaborative Christmas sweetness

THE MERCURY-nominated Liverpudlian singer-songwriter who’s dear to our hearts, Kathryn Williams, has teamed up with poet and playwright Carol Ann Duffy for a two-handed seasonal single, “Snow Angel”, out now…

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Willie J Healey – ‘Merry Christmas’: seasonal songcraft to end the year

OXFORDSHIRE songsmith and former amateur boxing champion Willie J Healey is finishing a year of deserved musical resurgence on a seasonal note, as he drops the classicism of “Merry Christmas”…

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