album review
EP REVIEW: LUMER – ‘Disappearing Act’: cathartic post-punk anger
Cathartic anger from Yorkshire post-punks stakes their claim to a place in a crowded pantheon
ALBUM REVIEW: Yvette Janine Jackson – ‘Freedom’: two suites of free expression of the Black experience
If real, unafraid, powerful sonic architecture, dialogue and expression is your thing – and in terms of consciousness, maybe it should be – then this record is essential. But enter steeled and go carefully, friend
ALBUM REVIEW: Farmer Dave Scher & The Wizards Of The West – ‘Farmer Dave Scher & The Wizards Of The West’
Dave Scher & The Wizards Of The West is like a finely reduced sauce; it packs an awful lot of psychedelic flavour and fun into a fat half-hour. Afrobeat, surf rock, funk, straight psych, country psych, jazz, shoegaze, are all seep through a lovely record with three of four moments of proper excellence and a lot of red-eyed, 1am lava lamp big-grinned fun besides. It’s good to see him back.
ALBUM REVIEW: Jim Ghedi – ‘In The Furrows Of Common Place’: a bold, proud album of working class folk
In The Furrows Of Common Place is a bold and proud album of working class folk. It bears witness with an unflinching melodious anger – it’s the first essential album of 2021
ALBUM REVIEW: John Dwyer, Nick Murray, Brad Caulkins, Tom Dolas and Greg Coates – ‘Witch Egg’
There’s so many ideas in Witch Egg, from so many genres and eras: mod, krautrock, free jazz, even acid jazz; they’re arrived at, explored at once, captured, moved on from. It speaks much of the restless creativity at the heart of this, John Dwyer. It’s quite a journey for a fringe music head
Album Review: Still Corners release the majestic album “The Last Exit”: a magical journey of mystery, romance and isolation.
In ‘The Last Exit’, Still Corners have perfectly captured a magical ethereal desert landscape in the spacious layers of their songs. Crystal sharp guitars, soaked in reverb and mystery, punctuate a bedrock of acoustic instruments and evocative, wild and unnatural sounds. Singer Tess Murray’s crooning, louche vocals smooth the path. There is an inherent a …
ALBUM REVIEW – POM POKO – CHEATER.
Pom Poko were first brought to Backseat Mafia’s attention early last year when they released their single “Praise” from their debut album Birthday released in 2019. Since then, they’ve been one of the bands from Bella Union’s spectrum of talent that have been a regular feature on the website and the release of “Like A …
ALBUM REVIEW: Jon Mueller – ‘Family Secret’: an immersive drone palimpsest
Family Secret is a journey of deep interiority: it’s implicit that it be served fresh, after dark, suitably lit with no distractions. Clever, eerie and beautiful, it’s an album that will continue to reward you
ALBUM REVIEW: Sleaford Mods – ‘Spare Ribs’: one of their best to date
Spare Ribs is one of Sleaford Mods’ strongest albums to date and serves as a reminder that they’re more unique, more interesting and more exciting than any of the groups that followed in their path
Album Review: The Raft releases the shimmering and dreamy album ‘Summerheads and Winter Beds’
The consistently elegant and ethereal beauty of The Raft shines brightly in the new album ‘Summerheads and Winter Beds’: a collection of shimmering incandescent tracks that burn brightly. And we know, that which burns brightly lasts half as long: the album is over before you know it and you just want it to keep going …