Album Reviews Archives - Backseat Mafia

Album Review: Akusmi – ‘Terra Incognita’: A lush sonic expedition into exotic rhythms and sultry sax melodies.

London based multi-instrumentalist and composer Pascal Bideau a.k.a Akusmi returns with his third Tonal Union album and if you’re a follower you’ll understand it’s not exactly going to be more…

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Say Psych: Album Review: Magic Castles – Realized

Magic Castles are back with a set of lush psych-rock reveries. Newly signed to Fuzz Club, their new album Realized takes Magic Castles’ music to a newfound level of clarity,…

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Album Review: Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band – ‘The New Atomic’: Full powered punk jazz dynamism that refuses to follow the script.

Why is Big Band jazz a proposition that many swerve? Is it seen as too close to trad, too much of a historically significant relic. In truth the Big Band…

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Album Review: Bicycle Thieves and Dunedin Dreams – Ōtepoti’s Bunchy’s Big Score top the league with ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’

Bunchy’s Big Score have one foot planted firmly in the storied soil of Ōtepoti and the other kicking gleefully at the future. On their second album ‘Wanda’s Bicycle’, the New…

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Album Review: Madonna Reclaims Her Club Crown With Confessions II

Madonna has spent more than four decades rewriting the rules of pop, so it feels fitting that Confessions II arrives at a moment when the cultural conversation is dominated by female…

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Album Review: Scrimshire – ‘Bring Our Light To Every Corner’: The multi-instrumentalist and friends deliver a soulful, sensitive Spiritual Jazz message.

This feels like an album that Adam Scrimshire, producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist has been edging towards for some time now. After the politically-charged ‘Paroxysm‘ in 2022 and the gently introspective…

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Album Review: Jeff Mills – The Trip To Vega

The Trip To Vega is about deep outer space odyssey that occurs in the process of traveling from Earth through the Cosmos to another “favorable” star system 25.3 light-years away.…

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Album Review: Dave Mech – Berlin Seite

The core idea behind “Berlin Seite” is old school: capture the raw, unfiltered energy of a live techno performance in a dark club night oozing of energy. Every track on the 10‑track…

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Album Review: Orbital Ensemble – ‘Contínua’: A daring fusion of rock, jazz and nu-samba which expands convention.

If last year’s Orbital Ensemble debut was the prelude to the collective’s live-incarnation then ‘Contínua’, its follow up, is very much the main event. It’s an explosive, full bodied realisation…

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Say Psych: Album Review: Cult of Dom Keller – Unholy Drum

Unholy Drum is the long-awaited sixth album from Nottingham band Cult Of Dom Keller – not a ‘return’, for they were never really gone, but the product of five years…

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