We Are Busy Bodies
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 ‘Funky Africa’ (remastered by Noah Mintz and available from May 6th). This classic slab of soul-jazz rare groove, hotly pursued by crate diggers, turntablists and …
Album Review: Pat Matshikiza and Kippie Moketsi – Tshona! : uplifting classic South African jazz from the 70s.
Those inspired curators at We Are Busy Bodies continue to astound with this latest release in their expanding achive from the seminal South African jazz label As Shams/The Sun. Pat Matshikiza and Kippie Moketsi’s ‘Tshona!’ (available from 15th April) was originally issued in 1975 and produced by label boss Rashid Vally, a pivotal figure in …
Premiere: Michael Scott Dawson releases new visuals for the beautiful ambient soundscape of Campestral
Canadian sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Michael Scott Dawson is building towards the release of his new album Music For Listening, out April 8th via We Are Busy Bodies. from it, he’s releasing the second single taken from it, Campestral, and we’re delighted to be able to premiere it right here on Backseat Mafia today. Following …
Premiere: Michael Scott Dawson releases his love letter to skateboarding with visuals to the ambient guitar work, Two Solitudes
Out in April is the new album from sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Michael Scott Dawson, Music For Listening, out via We Are Busy Bodies. Inspired by a conversation with his 95 year old grandmother, and her observations of birds outside her window. This led Dawson to investigate recordings made several years ago which featured birdsong, …
Album Review: Vis-A-Vis – The Best Of Vis-A-Vis In Congo Style
Remember those stellar studio bands of the late sixties/early seventies – The Meters, The Section, The Wrecking Crew, Muscle Shoals – defining the sound of where a record was made and fuelling the hit factories. Switch over to West Africa and you find the same thing, the tightest groups of session players at the source …
See: The kosmiche of New Age Doom & Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s ‘Step In Space’: a final, collaborative dose from the dub genius
LIKE his unparalleled predecessor Sun Ra, much-missed dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry always claimed he came from outer space – and who are we to argue? Let’s hope he’s returned to whichever planet is was that deigned to let him spend a little while upping the weeeerd ante down here on Planet Earth. Taken from …
Album review: Tom Dissevelt – ‘Fantasy In Orbit’: seminal Dutch space-age electronica gets a deserved reissue
WELCOME. Now, before we fasten your belts – they’ll keep you safe against the enormous Gs as we break the atmosphere, gain the vast promised land of outer space – it’s as well as we run through a final checklist to ensure a safe and enjoyable journey. So. Question. When names like Broadcast, Stereolab, Vanishing …
Album Review: South African be-bop trailblazer Kippie Moeketsi’s Blue Stompin receives long-awaited reissue
Over forty years on since its original release in 1977 those intrepid sound seekers at We Are Busy Bodies have just re-issued, in partnership with Rashid Vally’s seminal South African Jazz label As- Shams /The Sun, Kippie Moeketsi/Hal Singer’s ‘Blue Stompin’. The album’s title track and centrepiece highlights an intriguing jazz intersection from the two …
See: A discarded bass string finds new life in the stop-motion tale of Peace Flag Ensemble’s ‘Hilma af Klint in Ab’
SASKATCHEWAN free jazz collective Peace Flag Ensemble, who like to free up a little while keeping it flowing and melodious, are set to release their first venture into long-playing recordings this very Friday, June 18th, on Toronto label We Are Busy Bodies. In the ensemble’s set-up it’s the piano that lends the starting point for …
Album review: Peace Flag Ensemble – ‘Noteland’: intelligent, warm and melodic jazz improv from Canadian collective
LADIES and gentlemen of the more recherché musical persuasion: introducing a new act to especially intrigue the weird jazzers among you, Peace Flag Ensemble, an experimental collective drawn from various points across the verdant central Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The quintet are set to release their first venture into long-playing recordings this coming Friday, June …