Album Reviews
ALBUM REVIEW: The Heliocentrics – ‘Telemetric Sounds’: trippy as hell Afro-psych grooves
THE HELIOCENTRICS have been working away on a rarified astral plane of musical fusion for more than a decade and a half now – and frankly, if you’re a crate-digger on any kind of level, whose musical tastes range multifariously, they’re the kind of band whose wax should be sat in that little favoured stack …
ALBUM REVIEW: Kris Drever – ‘Where The World Is Thin’: a fine, open and wise set from Orcadian folk star
IF YOU’RE a gig veteran, whichever your chosen poison in terms of bands or genres, I bet you can in one sphere break down your gig experiences thus. Some bands you see – maybe that upcoming, hotly tipped support, you turn to your friends at the end of the night and say: “Yeah, quite fun …
Compilation: New Horizons – A Bristol Jazz Sound
Bristolian promoters Worm Disco Club have been championing South-Western talent since their inception in 2014 and since have become synonymous with quality groove laden goodness, percussive madness, jazz, psych and beyond.Now proudly presenting their label Worm Discs, the collective recruit some of Bristol’s most notable emerging talent for an exploration into the new wave of …
Droppin’ Knowledge: World Premiere – Rapper Hernon & Producer Frowns Share Their New Album Masterplan, Discuss Its Creation
The artists discuss their new album and share it with Backseat Mafia. Virginia rapper Hernon and Toronto-based producer Frowns met the way many artists meet each other today, on social media. After exchanging some direct messages on Instagram, they began to collaborate on a project together, their new album, Masterplan. While the process of creating …
ALBUM REVIEW: Cabbage – ‘Amanita Pantherina’: Mossley marauders aim for the jugular on their second
MOSSLEY – you pronounce it Mozzley, chaps, hard S – is a small milltown up in the hills north west of Manchester, where the soil gets thin, the rushes spring through the steep meadows; where Manchester as a greater conurbation gives up its last and prepares for the bleak moors of Yorkshire ahead. It’s also …
Premiere: Divest – Time Well Spent
There’s something in the Scandinavian air that’s producing some pretty special music. This time around, it’s Divest, a Norwegian indie pop band that are premiering their new album ‘Time Well Spent’ on Backseat Mafia. This is as far as you can get from a bleak Nordic winter: it’s bright, sparkling summery pop that canters forth …
Album Review: Mildlife – ‘Automatic’
Phase, the debut album by Australian band Mildlife, was a bonafide word of mouth discovery upon its release in early 2018. It’s mellow combination of groove propelled psychedelic jazz and disco, performed with a nod to Kosmische, Balearic, Scandinavian and Adriatic favours, caught a wave with a snowballing swell of support that united various scenes’ …
Droppin’ Knowledge: Public Enemy – What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? – Review
Unfortunately, Public Enemy is not in full effect on its latest album, an exercise in righteous nostalgia, not righteous anger. This week, Public Enemy releases its latest long player, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?. It is the iconic rap group’s fifteenth studio album, and marks a return to Def Jam Recordings. …
Album Review: Death Bells – ‘New Signs Of Life’: post-punk and emo-infused rock
THE NEW album from Australian duo Will Canning and Remy Veselis, aka Death Bells, is a fusion of post-punk and emo-infused rock. The band has become a more concrete two-person pairing since its formation in 2015, culminating in the twosome making the bold move to up sticks from Sydney, Australia, and transfer 7000 miles to …
ALBUM REVIEW: Sing Leaf – ‘Not Earth’: wide-eyed psych-indie-electro bliss
NAIVETY. It’s one of those words whose power has been denuded by an overuse of a certain conjugation of it. Much like ‘awesome’, the non sequitur of teens across the English-speaking world, naivety has come to mean fey, unwise, easily led. Sing Leaf, the recording pen-name of Toronto’s David Como, is naive in all the …