Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

SEE: Don Letts’ new video for The Clash’s ‘Magnificent Seven’

COME December 1980, and The Clash brought their all-encompassing ambition to bear on the triple-disc, 36-song Sandanista!, taking in dub, rockabilly, jazz, disco, hiphop, reggae and more. One of the…

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EP REVIEW: Tori Amos – ‘Christmastide’: four originals for the season

A stateswoman of female musical discourse takes the Christmas song tradition and makes of it something thoughtful, intelligent and nuanced

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TRACK: Tindersticks cover the Television Personalities’ ‘You’ll Have To Scream Louder’ – new album next year

NOTTINGHAM’S finest, Tindersticks, are all set to release a new album in 2021 on City Slang, their home for most of the past decade; and they’ve dropped their first single,…

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SEE: Jon Hopkins covers Thom Yorke’s ‘Dawn Chorus’

AS THIS most hellishly viral year’s eyelids droop and it prepares to exit stage left, the masterful Jon Hopkins has brought some beautiful piano catharsis and grace for our troubled…

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SEE: The animation for King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s ‘If Not Now, When?’

TWO THINGS about New Zealand’s King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: one. They’re immense, ass ‘n’ tousled locks-shaking fun. Two. Christ, they’re prolific. Their cup of creativity runneth o’er. Twenty-three…

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TRACK: Porridge Radio feel the darker Yuletide vibe with ‘The Last Time I Saw You (O Christmas)’

PORRIDGE RADIO are drawing down the curtain on 2020 with one final, fine salutation: their own contribution to the vein of alternative Christmas songs which Low kicked off back in…

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SEE: The video for Bill Callahan’s ‘Breakfast’: a visual nugget sifted from ‘Gold Record’

OUR DEEPEST Americana poet Bill Callahan put together his latest album, Gold Record, really quickly, and previewed it over those long, lazy lockdown summer days with the neat idea of…

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TRACKS: Erland Cooper wraps up the year with a gorgeous choral EP, ‘Eynhallow’

ERLAND COOPER wraps up a year in which he’s brought us much light, creativity and joy with one final aural missive, the choral EP, Eynhallow, out today on Phases. Hether…

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TRACK: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – ‘Where They Perform Miracles’: Alec brings the yearn and then some

ALEC OUNSWORTH’S Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are following up the double whammy of October’s twin single drop, “Thousand Oaks”/”Hesitation Nation” (which we adored here) with the beautiful and elegiac “Where…

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SEE: Dave the Keys – ‘The Lights of the Pub’: Komputer man’s tune to save his local

DAVID BAKER has had a pretty varied career in the British music scene to date; but as Dave the Keys he’s decided to give something back: he’s releasing a little…

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