NEWS
Premieres / Exclusives
Premiere: Gun Laws confront the compromises of survival on the volatile new single ‘Deals! Deals! Deals!’
Naarm/Melbourne post-punk five-piece Gun Laws are back, and Backseat Mafia has the exclusive premiere of their new single “Deals! Deals! Deals!”, out 18 September. The track is…
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Premiere: The Silversound plunge deeper into cosmic psych with new single ‘Hands’.
Backseat Mafia has followed Melbourne’s own dark psychedelic export The Silversound closely over the years, and we’re thrilled to bring you the premiere of their new single…
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Premiere: The fabulous Tanya-Lee Davies checks the room for exits on ‘Valentines Day’, in a glorious new track that prowls with a lascivious glow.
Every 14 February runs on the same fuel: cheap wine, expensive expectations, and a stiff upper lip bracing for whatever the night decides to hand out. The enigmatic chanteuse Tanya-Lee Davies…
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Premiere: Damien Binder declares ‘I Can’t Believe My Mind’ with a delicious poetic and melancholic muscularity.
Damien Binder is a unique artist who balances incredible productivity with constant quality – a firm favourite here at the antipodean outpost of Backseat Mafia. He has followed up the…
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Single Premiere: Dolium – All My Sins
Lo-fi/post-punk/scuzz-rockers Dolium return with a brand new explosive single ‘ All My Sins’ and BSM is honoured to bring you the premiere. Out today via Sister 9 Recordings, the track is the…
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Track / Video
Track: Taylor Moss turns a brush with mortality into new single Gravestone
Taylor Moss is staring mortality squarely in the face on Gravestone, and rather than getting gloomy about it, she has decided to turn the whole thing into a reason to live louder. The new…
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Track: Among The Restless unleash 6 Years Of Madness ahead of debut album Seasons
Among The Restless are closing in on their debut album Seasons, but they have one more song to send out into the world first. The Melbourne alt-rock outfit return with 6 Years Of Madness, a…
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Track: Lottie McLeod unveils The Boathouse EP with lead track Thomas
Lottie McLeod is stepping out of her shell on The Boathouse, a deeply personal new EP that finds the Brisbane singer-songwriter swapping people-pleasing for something considerably more useful:…
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Album Reviews
Album Review: Hoolahan’s ‘Bay of Chance’ gives us breathtakingly beautiful melodies, chiming guitars and a career-defining form.
Some bands disappear so quietly that you stop expecting them back, then return with a record that makes the wait look like a deliberate act of patience. Sydney’s Hoolahan have done…
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Album Review: Negro Leo – ‘White Elephant’: Confrontational, complex and utterly compelling retrospective from the Brazilian experimenter.
Opening windows onto the best music that you’ve never heard, the latest reveal from Hive Miind Records is another ambitious and, in some ways, risky release. Working with Rio based…
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Album Review: After find their place in the sun on debut album ‘Fell Asleep in the Sun’
After beginning life on Hinge. Los Angeles duo Justine Dorsey and Graham Epstein quickly worked out that romance wasn’t on the cards, but that their musical chemistry was. Since forming After…
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Album Review: boycalledcrow – ‘the sprawl’: restless folktronica which goes darker and deeper.
Time to rummage once more in former folk-singer Carl M. Knott’s curious world of sound. As boycalledcrow his latest intriguing collection ‘the sprawl’ sees him working wonders from a trove of…
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Album review: Wasia Project release an album that embraces the beauty of the in-between
Preview: Wasia Project release an album that embraces the beauty of the in-between
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EP Review: エミエミ (emi emi) unveils her debut self-titled EP, and you’ll need shades and dancing shoes.
Sometimes – actually quite often – it gets very dark and cold in the southern headquarters of Backseat Mafia, where the next port of call to the south is Antarctica. But to adopt…
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Interviews
Meet: Where did that come from? Midge Ure (Ultravox, Visage and Live Aid) talks to us about his unfinished business and his treasured legacy.
Ahead of his rescheduled Australian tour on the Catalogue: The Hits tour, the Ultravox frontman talks with me about Joe Dolce, Scottish tenacity, and why he refuses to sulk through Vienna. The…
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Meet: Stacy Jones on art respecting art and not overthinking
Stacy Jones on playing live, art respecting art and not overthinking
#americanhifi #stacyjones #rockmusic #interview #livemusic
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Meet: Kirk Brandon predicted the future. But no-one was listening
Spear of Destiny's Kirk Brandon is on tour right now. We got together to talk about Chelsea, reclaiming the music and seeing into the future…
#kirkbrandon #spearofdestiny #interview…
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Interview: It’s Not a Documentary — It’s an Act: Baxter Dury on Nepotism, Performance and the Strange Theatre of Modern Life
When I last saw Baxter Dury, it was during Dark Mofo in Hobart — a setting whose nocturnal weirdness felt oddly perfect for his particular brand of dry, late-night storytelling. Over the past…
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Feature: Fokofpolisiekar Reflect on Swanesang at 20 as Australian & NZ Tour Extends Legacy
South African punk band Fokofpolisiekar reflect on Swanesang 20 years on, as Hunter Kennedy discusses identity, rebellion and taking the band's music to audiences in Australia and New Zealand.
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Meet: A.S. Fanning Talks About His New Album ‘Take Me Back To Nowhere’
On his fourth studio album Take Me Back To Nowhere, A.S. Fanning sounds both unmoored and quietly resolute. Drawing inspiration from science-fiction, experimental sound worlds, and a newly…
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Features / Playlists
News: Hard-Fi to Headline Harlequins’ Big Summer Kick-Off at Allianz Stadium
British indie heavyweights Hard-Fi are set to return to their South West London stomping grounds this May. The Staines-formed outfit has been confirmed as the headline act…
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Interview: It’s Not a Documentary — It’s an Act: Baxter Dury on Nepotism, Performance and the Strange Theatre of Modern Life
When I last saw Baxter Dury, it was during Dark Mofo in Hobart — a setting whose nocturnal weirdness felt oddly perfect for his particular brand of dry, late-night storytelling. Over the past…
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Feature: Backseat Mafia’s photographic tribute to Bluesfest Byron Bay
For four years, Backseat Mafia has covered Bluesfest Byron Bay, an iconic event on the Australian music calendar. On March 13th, just three weeks before what would have been the 37th Bluesfest…
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Live review
Live Gallery: Bush and Shinedown bring three decades of rock to Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion 23.09.2026
The Hordern Pavilion has hosted plenty of rock history, and tonight is another big night that arrives in the shape of a bill spanning three countries and several generations of rock. New…
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Live Review: The Levellers, Hove Park, Brighton, 05.09.26
With a brand new music event ‘The Levellers’ homecoming at Hove Park felt less like a standard outdoor gig and more like a communal gathering of Brighton’s musical DNA!. Staging its own mini…
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Live Review: Xandria, Seven Spires & Tulip. Manchester Academy 3. 18/09/2026
There are gigs where one band inevitably overshadows the rest of the bill, leaving the support acts struggling to make a lasting impression. Then there are those rare evenings where every…
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Live Gallery: HEALTH turn Melbourne’s Forum Theatre dark with Perturbator and King Yosef 20.09.2026
Beneath the Forum Theatre’s ornate ceiling and old-world grandeur, Los Angeles trio HEALTH brought a very different architecture to the room: industrial electronics, punishing low end…
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Live Gallery: Ashnikko Brings Tiny Trinkets and Beautiful Chaos to Sydney’s Enmore Theatre – 19.09.26, Gadigal Land/Sydney
Ashnikko, the bubblegum hyper-pop provocateur from North Carolina, brought her SMOOCHIES Tour to Sydney’s Enmore Theatre twice over the weekend, delivering delectible DIY chaos that…
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Live Gallery: Jason Derulo brings ‘The Last Dance’ to a packed Sydney Afterpay Arena 19.09.2026
The lights drop inside Sydney’s Afterpay Arena, but Jason Derulo doesn’t appear immediately. His DJ is already working the packed room, whipping up the crowd before a countdown begins on the…
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Film
News: First Look At Oasis’ Reunion Film Don’t Look Back In Anger
One year after Oasis stunned the music world by returning to the stage for their first live performance together in 16 years, the band’s extraordinary comeback is set to be immortalised…
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Film Review: ‘The Best Summer’ is a bittersweet time capsule of alternative music’s golden age
There is something almost unbelievable about The Best Summer. What began as footage shot casually by filmmaker Tamra Davis while accompanying the Summersault festival around Australia in 1995…
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News: Kylie Minogue opens her archives for new three-part documentary KYLIE
Some pop stars have eras. Kylie Minogue has decades. From her first rush of fame as Charlene on Neighbours to becoming one of the most reliable hitmakers in modern pop,…
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News: The life and times of William Arthur and his iconic Sydney band Glide is explored in ‘Disappear Here’, a film by Ben deHoedt.
Glide were a seminal Sydney band that burned brightly and all together too briefly in the nineties, beset by tragedy when their singer and songwriter William Arthur died at the end of that…
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Film Review: January
Winter can be a magical time of year and there’s nothing more atmospheric than a sprinkling of snow. In many places, that light covering becomes something different entirely. In Eastern…
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Sundance Review: Iron Butterflies
As we approach the first anniversary of the full Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s easy to forget that this war didn’t start in 2022. Indeed, the (recent) troubles with Russia can be traced…
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