We’re big fans of Minor Victories here at Backseat Mafia, and their eponymous debut was up there amongst the best albums of last year.
The band have now stripped back those tracks to produce “Orchestral Variations”, which you might expect to simply be, well, orchestral versions, but no. Take “Scattered Ashes”, one of the stand-out tracks from MV, in it’s original form a hefty, almost Springsteenesque slab of noise, here reduced to a sublime, aching ambience, recalling Philip Glass or Brian Eno at their best, led by the echoey piano lines. It really is bloody lovely stuff!
Our only gripe, if you could call it that, is that the video doesn’t feature any cats. with lazers (see the original video ..). But you can’t have it all I guess, and a lazerless jellyfish works just fine with the ambience of it all.
“Orchestral Variations” itself is out today (27th January) via all the usual outlets, physical and digital.
