album review Archives - Page 22 of 61 - Backseat Mafia

Album review: Conrad Clipper – ‘Heron’s Book Of Dreams’: a pseudonymous, textural ambient gem

Heron's Book of Dreams is glorious. It knows what to do, it knows what you need, and never aims for cheap and maximal when stripping back, excellent arrangement and contrast can do the job. Think a slightly more abrasively edged, more intimate A Winged Victory For The Sullen. A very beautiful record for people who love the interstices where 'flesh and blood' instrumentation gets it on with drones. Delightful.

Album: Unflesh – Inhumation

Blackened melodic death metallers Unflesh have released their second full-length, ‘Inhumation’. The band partnered with artist Junki Sakuraba (Seven Spires) once again to create the killer album art for Inhumation. The album was…

Album review: E.R. Jurken – ‘I Stand Corrected’: a psych-folk debut full of catharsis and melody

E.R. Jurken's first full missive into the world reveals quite the saddest tale at an angle, never telling, always hinting. It also shows an absolute grasp of songcraft, of melody, and an abiding love of British psych-pop and later American geniuses such as Neutral Milk Hotel and Elliott Smith

Album Review: Electro Indie beauty from R Zak ‘s ‘Dialetcs’

Review : 9/ 10 There’s a certain folkloric quality that’s embedded in your mind, as the music shifts from the nuanced beauty to the darker , more solemn places in…

Album review: Secret of Elements – ‘Chronos’: the worlds of classical and electronic pirouette

A decade in a life lived richly and well, presented on an album which straddles two worlds which are becoming ever better acquainted - modern classical and electronica; when Johann really hits home the two pirouette gloriously. At times worthy of a billing on Erased Tapes or the like, at times closer to J.Willgoose's warm analogue ambience as Late Night Final, if we can take one thing away, it's to endeavour to live as boldly, as clearly and as truly as Johann has

Album review: Cory Hanson – ‘Pale Horse Rider’: a psych-country triumph from Wand frontman

You might expect Pale Horse Rider to be a really good record; it's actually a great one. It's a record about LA written with all the perception and acuity of native. It takes the country-psych template and when it plays within it, it plays with grace and precision and blur; and when it shifts out beyond, it does with the dynamics of British exploratory rock. All points covered, no filler; perhaps its time to crown Cory the new Wolf King of LA. Buy.

Album review: Spirit of the Beehive ‘ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH’

New album from Spirit of the Beehive on new label, Saddle Creek, out April 9th this is Entertainment, Death. The shape shifting Philadelphia trio return with a new work for…

Album review: Christine Ott – ‘Time To Die’: French composer returns to Gizeh for a modern compositional masterclass

Without a doubt one of the most potent voices in modern composition today, Christine Ott is as happy to push right out into dark, even industrial-infused experimenta as she is to play a straight bat with absolute confidence in the deeper classical tradition and the wider avant-garde palette; she can do it all, if she chooses, and when she breathes the ondes Martenot into life; there really is no one to touch her

Album review: Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles – ‘Keys’: pull up a pew for bluegrass instrumental delight

You know what the best thing about Keys is; for all its intimacy, the focus wholly on how the two players and their instruments mesh,a real joy in creation rings through. William Tyler, Black Twig Pickers, Jack Rose fans; please come on over and pull up a pew

Album review: Balmorhea – ‘The Wind’: Texas post-classical duo present a lovely set for Deutsche Grammophon

Balmorhea draw a line back in the tradition to the much-missed Louisville, KY outfit Rachel's, who opted to take an idea and use whichever instrumental mix they found brought out the best of what they wished to convey. And The Wind roams freely and with precision across a spectrum from formal classical through a more pastoral take on the form and all the way out to ambient experimentalism, spoken word, found sound, with a unity and cohesion. It's just a lovely, thoughtful record; complex in its simplicity

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