Album Reviews
Album Review : Joel Jerome’s ‘Cosmic Bear Jamboree’
Listening to Joel Jerome’s new album you can’t help but get swept up in the guy’s joy for music making. There’s a feeling of a guy getting completely lost in his own little musical world. Jerome is an L.A.-based producer who’s studio has welcomed some of indie rock’s most up-and-coming artists. He’s worked hand-in-hand with …
Say Psych: Album Review: NONN – NONN
Rating: 7/10 Sweden has recently become a hot bed of psychedelic activity, with Goat being projected to global acclaim and Josefin Öhrn & The Liberation garnering ever increasing publicity. The latest act to join the ranks is NONN, AKA Christian Eldefors who presents his take on brooding post-punk and cold wave. After spending the winter …
Album Review: Richard Thompson – Acoustic Classics II
Richard Thompson has been performing his particular brand of folk rock for the best part of five decades now, and his career has seen him regularly release critically acclaimed albums. Initially a founder member of Fairport Convention, he recorded a string of much celebrated albums with his then wife Linda throughout the 70s, and he …
Album Review: Calvin Harris – Funk Wav Bounces Vol 1
The evolution of Scottish DJ/producer Calvin Harris has been quite an epic one. Rewind to his emergence on to the scene, when he was a geeky looking guy singing about how amazing the eighties were. It’s always been his production skills that have trumped his limited vocal abilities, and he capitalised on this on his …
Album Review: Dan Black – Do Not Revenge
We Dan Black’s fans are a patient bunch. Just a mere eight years after his debut solo album ‘UN’ and the king of wonky pop drops the follow up ‘Do Not Revenge’ this week. So full disclosure, ‘UN’ is one of my all time favourite albums. So many I’m not really the best person to …
Album Review: Siobhan Wilson – There Are No Saints
Siobhan Wilson provides the heavenly soundtrack to heartbreak and healing with her second album ‘There Are No Saints’. After returning to Scotland from Paris five years ago, Siobhan Wilson moved from Elgin to Glasgow and used her background in classical music and French jazz to stunning effect. Her second album ‘There Are No Saints’ (out …
Album Review : Videodrones’ ‘Nattens Hævn’
Videodrones makes music that grabs you by the jugular and doesn’t let go. It’s dark, brooding electronic music that conjures up late night flicks you’d come across when you were a kid in the witching hour. Vampires, zombies, demons, witches, and the supernatural emanating from your television as a strange, buzzing wave of music accompanied …
Album Review: tunnel traffic – MEESH
Adam Hachey writes under the name tunnel traffic but we’ve met him before playing as part of a band called Meesh – enthusiastically reviewed by Backseat Mafia a few years back (sadly unavailable on the site at the moment). tunnel traffic have now released an album entitled MEESH just to confuse things, but one thing …
Album Review : Astral TV’s ‘Chrystal Shores
Listening to Astral TVs Chrystal Shores is like receiving some ancient transmission from deep space. It slowly unfolds through breathing synthesizers and tube-driven circuits these interplanetary melodies. This album evokes long walks contemplating life, or quiet moments watching the sun dissipate into the ocean. This record is made up of what I call “big picture” …
Classic Compilation: Orbital – Back to Mine
The ‘Back to Mine’ compilations premise was simple. After pummelling your brain to mush in a sweaty club, with four hours of repetitive beats, the DJ in question would invite you back to his pad, where he would show you his gentler side by playing you chilled-out choons, as you melted into his couch, the …