jazz albums Archives - Backseat Mafia

Album Review: Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo; Grief grooves with funk-fueled resilience.

Emma-Jean Thackray’s new album Weirdo is a bold, technicolour triumph — deeply personal, fiercely original, and bursting at the seams with groove-laden jazz funk. Self-produced, self-performed, and self-mixed in the…

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Album Review: Lea Maria Fries – Cleo; Restless, poetic, genre-hopping brilliance from a singular new voice.

From the Swiss countryside to Berlin’s creative chaos and on to the quiet corners of Paris, Cleo, the debut album from Lea Maria Fries, feels like a journey through sound,…

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Album Review: Ebba Åsman – When You Know; Soulful jazz with a modern edge.

Swedish jazz virtuoso Ebba Åsman returns with When You Know, her third full-length album and arguably her most personal statement to date. Known for her remarkable skills as a trombonist,…

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Album Review: Joe Armon-Jones – All The Quiet, Volume 1; A bold fusion of jazz, funk, and dub.

Joe Armon-Jones has long been at the forefront of the UK’s thriving jazz scene, blending deep grooves, exploratory improvisation, and an ever-expanding sonic palette. All The Quiet: Volume 1, the…

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Album Review: KEG – Fun’s Over; Chaotic, unpredictable, and ultimately rewarding

It’s hard to pin KEG down. A seven-piece with the chaotic energy of a band half their size but twice as frantic, they operate somewhere between post-punk, jazz, indie, and…

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Album Review: Kamasi Washington reaches new spiritual heights with defining album Fearless Movement

Kamasi Washington’s latest offering, “Fearless Movement,” out today, is poised to be one of the standout albums of the year, certainly in Backseat Mafia towers. The album not only showcases…

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Album Review: Slow Knife – A Hymn Supreme

Todmorden experimentalists Slow Knife have returned with a second album, the fully improvised two track long player, A Hymn Supreme. Taking its lead more than likely (as well as half…

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Album Review: DoomCannon – Renaissance

‘Renaissance’ sees DoomCannon’s combine the social inspiration over the last few years, from the global pandemic to the worldwide outcry of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. …

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Album Review: Almon Memela – Funky Africa : a South African soul-jazz classic revived.

Call off the search! The chroniclers at We Are Busy Bodies continue their significant excavation of the rich seams of seventies South African jazz with the release of Almon Memela’s…

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Album Review: Ilmiliekki Quartet – Ilmiliekki Quartet : Essential atmospheric jazz

Trying to unravel the interconnections and collaborations in jazz is often like code-breaking. Players are likely to be in several groups at a time, they form their own units, perform…

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