Chris Sawle, Author at Backseat Mafia

SEE: Emerson Snowe – ‘Frankenstein’: creepy visuals and Chills-like guitar pop

BRISBANE’S Jarrod M. Mahon disappears down the rabbit hole of indiepop under the dashing name of Emerson Snowe; and he’s just released a first taster of an EP, out later…

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SEE: The Native – ‘Lost On You’: first for the year from anthemic West Country risers

ANTHEMIC Plymothians The Native have just dropped their first single of 2021, the stirring guitar anthem “Lost On You”; watch the video with us, below. Still a new band by…

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TRACK: Catch Prichard – ‘Lipstick And Fur’: 1am chamber pop … with a coronavirus baritone

CATCH PRICHARD are a chamber-pop orchestral project based in the San Francisco Bay city of Oakland, who have a delightfully nuanced, baritone way with their musical stylings, the like of…

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NEWS: Mute sign Sylph, with an EP in May; hear his debut vocal banger, ‘Braid’

DANIEL MILLER’S Mute has added yet another string to its bow with the signing of Sylph, whose debut EP for the legendary imprint, Silver As It Was Before, will be…

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TRACK: Renée Reed – ‘Où est la fée’: a mystical tale from the Louisiana backwoods

HAILING from Lafayette, Louisiana, Renée Reed has followed up her excellent first single, “Fast One”, with a French language track, “Où est la fée” today. It’s the first song she’s released in French, reflecting…

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SEE: Sarah Neufeld – ‘Stories’: Arcade Fire violinist reaches for the eternal

SUPPLYING the power of her violin to Arcade Fire from their breakthrough smash Neon Bible on; founding member of exploratory instrumental sextet Bell Orchestre, alongside Richard Parry, whose career has…

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SEE: MF Tomlinson – ‘Them Apples’: on Montague Terrace with an acid-folk odyssey

MF TOMLINSON, the project of London-based, Australian singer-songwriter Michael Tomlinson, is today taking us deeper, oh! so deeper into his particular blued Montagued Terrace with a new single, “Them Apples”;…

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ALBUM REVIEW: CAMERA – ‘Prosthuman’: the current Berlin motorik

SO, LET’S talk krautrock. In many ways, it’s all about the rhythm, isn’t it? Think Can; think Jaki Liebezeit, that perfect control, poise, underpinning. Motorik, propulsion, but also tremendous fills…

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ALBUM REVIEW: Indigo Sparke – ‘echo’: a jaw-dropping country-folk debut

You can hear Indigo's very essence shot right through echo. It's never less, at any point, than extremely lovely; at many points its genuinely bloody stunning. You know when someone has that alchemical it, and boy: Indigo incontrovertibly does. It's not an album to have on in the background, because it's far too arresting and enveloping, commanding. She's royalty in waiting on the leftfield folk scene. Astonishing; buy

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EP REVIEW: Tape Runs Out – ‘Ghost Fruit’: hail Cambridge’s new intelligent indiepop geniuses

I really, genuinely think Tape Runs Out may one day take a place in the pantheon of the proper eccentric, intelligent British pop genii - they can turn their hands in any direction they wish, know how to arrange a tune so it makes you sit bolt upright, aren't afraid to push that tune in whichever stylistic direction it seems to demand; yet are also completely enthralled to the brilliance of a well-turned pop song. Brilliant, insouciant and intelligent

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