Indie
Live Review: Hands Off Gretel / Edited People / Luke Appleton – The Birdwell Venue, Barnsley 18.12.2021
On a cold December afternoon, I drove my son, his girlfriend and my daughter 85 miles through the fog for our last gig of the year, Hands Off Gretel in Barnsley. The Birdwell Venue is a revamped old Working men’s club with a seriously impressive live space: The Lighting and sound are excellent, the stage is both …
Backseat Downunder: A Personal Top Fifty List of Favourite Australian/New Zealand Albums and Singles from 2021
This has been another extraordinary year which has seen musicians reach peak creativity locked away in their bedrooms, recording studios, recording studios in their bedrooms and all manner of locations – a side effect of the lockdowns that have beset both Australia and New Zealand. The sheer volume of releases seems to me to have …
Live Review: LIFE / Isabella Strange – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh 15.12.2021
In January 2020 at Rockaway Beach festival the Hull four-piece LIFE produced an electrifying set in an afternoon slot. Chatting to bassist Lydia after the gig, they said they were all set for a spring tour, including my home town of Edinburgh at the independent venue Sneaky Pete’s. Little did we know what was around …
Live Review: LCD Soundsystem – Brooklyn Steel, New York City 5.12.2021
As a native New Yorker, I have a really embarrassing confession to make – I had never seen LCD Soundsystem live before. Kinda sad, right? But, thanks to their 20-night residency at Brooklyn Steel, spanning from late November to mid-December, I was finally able to correct that. It’s not like I haven’t been a fan …
Not Forgotten: The Jasmine Minks – ‘The Jasmine Minks’: on older brothers, cassette pets and discovering the world of Creation
MY ROUTE into The Jasmine Minks and the whole world of early Creation Records – Slaughter Joe, Biff Bang Pow, Revolving Paint Dream and so many others? Mine was the time-honoured one: that is, the combined good agency of a friend’s older brother and the humble cassette. It’s a story repeated everywhere there are older …
See: Nell & The Flaming Lips drop their take on the Nick Cave classic, ‘Red Right Hand’
IT’S the latest brilliantly wonky full-covers project from Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and the boys, whose new heady fwend is budding Canada-via-Yorkshire songsmith Nell, in the company of whom they’ve taken on the catalogue of no lesser a god of the darker side than Nick Cave himself. With that full album of Cave covers, Where …
Premiere: Velvet Sunset reveal the scuffed beauty of new single ‘I Ride All Night’
French duo Velvet Sunset, aka Max and Eleonore are back with a new single, I ride all night, and we’re delighted to be able to premiere it right here on Backseat Mafia today. The band mix up this indie rock sound with element of shoegaze and psychedelia in the single, with these scuzzy guitars winding …
Track: Drew Smith – ‘Whose News’ feat. Isla Craig: the Toronto scene brings us another gem of blissful, ambient synthpop-triphop
BESIDES his other bow-strings playing in Toronto power-poppers Bunny and the heart-hookin’ bubblegum fun of The Bicycles, Toronto’s Drew Smith also fashions a lovely ambient synthpop under his birth name: dreamy, fun, blissful, and very much of an effect with Montreal’s Afternoon Bike Ride. It’s sorta candyfloss brittle and ice-melt pure and futuristic and just …
See: Lime Cordiale and Idris Elba’s incredible and improbable collaboration continues to bloom with the release of a video for the absolutely brilliant track ‘What’s Not To Like’, plus EP and tour news.
The musical collaboration between Australia’s foremost indie dance pop outfits Lime Cordiale and iconic and enigmatic British actor Idris Elba is at first blush one of the most outlandish concepts imaginable. Following the fabulous single ‘Apple Crumble’ released last month, the dynamic paring have just released the brilliant track ‘What’s Not To Like’ as another …