John Parry, Author at Backseat Mafia

Album Review: Joni Void – Every Life Is A Light : The Montreal sound artist delivers a new experimental-pop touchstone.

Pinning, hash-tagging, mood-boarding, even crisply describing Joni Void’s music gets no easier. Maybe the role Void plays is as a post post-sampling, cut & paste collagist or re-imaginer of the…

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Track/Video: The irrepressible Steve Von Till previews new solo album with the sombre grace of ‘Watch Them Fade’.

Steve Von Till is a creative tour de force: guitarist/vocalist/lynch pin of seminal post metal pioneers Neurosis plus their experimental offshoot Tribes Of Neurot; curator and founder of the essential…

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Album Review: No Frills –”Sad Clown” : Honest songs that chime and chill from Toronto’s Lo-fi indie realists.

It’s been a while since anything’s been heard of Daniel Busheikin and his No Frills buddies. The Toronto band’s self-released debut album ‘Downward Dog’ trundled into the US college radio…

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Album Review : Adam Ben Ezra – ‘Heavy Drops’ : funky and reflective jazz fusion from the irrepressible bassist.

Jazz musician and ‘YouTube sensation’ may seem an unlikely combination but double-bass player Adam Ben Ezra straddles both camps with a natural ease. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, born in Israel and…

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Album Review : Nina Garcia – ‘Bye Bye Bird’ : Taking noise guitar deeper and further.

You could say that guitar led experimentalism is having a moment. Away from the revered Frith/ Orcutt/Ambarchi/Anderson/Connors conclave, a new wave of fretboard deconstructors are cranking up their own kind…

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Album Review: Maud The Moth – The Distaff : a dramatic, intense avant-rock statement.

Celestial, ethereal, bestial and brutal, woven with beauty and darker mysteries, you need a tapestry of adjectives to describe the music of Maud the moth. The project of Spanish-born /…

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Album Review: Dowdelin –‘Tchenbé!’: Lyon-based Beats and Creole-soul fusionists groove deeper.

It all started when fusion-centric producer/musician David Kiledjian met Martinican singer Olivya Victorin with the notion of sculpting something different, maybe some creole-voiced, beats-informed nu soul and the result… Dowdelin.…

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Album Review: Marton Juhasz-‘Metropolis’: Jazz rock re-imagined and re-vitalised.

Of all new European jazz, the Hungarian scene is the one that just keeps on delivering surprises. The psychedelic beats of Jazzbois’, Mörk’s silky assured nu-soul flavours and Àbáse’s far…

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Album Review: Jupiter & Okwess –‘Ekoya’: The Irrepressible Congolese band deliver a scorching return.

Formed in 1990 by Jupiter Bokondji from within the buzzing Congolese street music scene, Jupiter & Okwess have always been an irrepressible band. From early success across Africa to serious…

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Album Review: Peace Flag Ensemble – ‘Everything Is Possible’: sublime and intimate jazz-toned portraits from the Saskatchewan sextet.

Saskatchewan sound sculptors Peace Flag Ensemble are a band who always seem to go about things quietly. No Fanfares, no bombast, a musical collective whose fluent jazz-toned, post rock dynamics…

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