John Parry, Author at Backseat Mafia

Album Review: José Medeles – Railroad Cadences & Melancholic Anthems : a stunning ‘tribute’ to John Fahey’s musical spirit.

So what do you make of tribute albums? Are they places to be seen, a rag bag of cover versions by a bunch of people who have nothing in common…

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Album Review: Roots – Deeper Roots: a long last South African soul jazz reviver.

Continuing their excavation of the works of Almon Memela, one of those unheralded dynamos of seventies South African music, We Are Busy Bodies have just released ‘Deeper Roots’ by ROOTS…

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Track/Video: T. Gowdy previews ‘Vidisions’ from new album ‘Miracles’ –peak kinetic motivation.

Sometimes electronic music can get short circuited by its own intellectualism, where high concepts and technical processes become the focus. Canadian music producer and audio-visual artist Timothy Gowdy’s work may…

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Album Review: JOYFULTALK – Familiar Science: a dazzling alt-jazz beat connection.

Multi-disciplinary artist, composer and musician Jay Crocker (JOYFULTALK lead-protagonist) works with combinations and reactions, fusing elements with care and microscopic attention to create the surprising but coherent. The last impressive…

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Album Review: Almon Memela – Funky Africa : a South African soul-jazz classic revived.

Call off the search! The chroniclers at We Are Busy Bodies continue their significant excavation of the rich seams of seventies South African jazz with the release of Almon Memela’s…

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Album Review: Lalalar – Bi Cinnete Bakar: Furious electro-techno-rock from the Istanbul trio.

Those fine sound selectors at Bongo Joe have really been ripping up the new post punk envelope recently. We’ve had Tout Bleu’s dark-folk electronica, Amami’s earnest Rai inventions and most…

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Live Review: Jason Sharp – The Rose Hill, Brighton 3.05.22

Even before the live music began there was a sense that something extraordinary was about to happen in the snug confines of the artsy Rose Hill pub on Tuesday night.…

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Live Review: Anna Meredith and the LCO – Barbican, London 30.4.22

Anna Meredith’s electronic pop music has always been orchestral in scale, layered, interconnected, harmonically complex and structured like a tight stack of circuit boards, wired for glorious sound. So the…

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Album Review: Congotronics International – Where’s The One? : Indispensable document from the Congolese/leftfield indie supergroup, live and locomotive.

Collective, supergroup, ensemble…whatever way you look at it Congotronics International were a big big band. Nineteen musicians, five guitarists, three likembe players, five percussionists, two bass players, three drummers and…

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Track/Video: Patrick Watson unveils an exquisite video to welcome his ‘Better In The Shade’ album

Patrick Watson is an extraordinary musician – seven albums in and the Canadian singer-songwriter’s delicate melodic tapestries never wear thin. Following 2019’s ‘Wave’, an album of shimmering majestic orchestral pop…

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