Features
Meet: Is this Pop? Colin Moulding (XTC) has a chat about his new single, the old stuff and the secret to writing pop songs
It’s been over 3 years since ex XTC singer/bass player Colin Moulding teamed up with ex-XTC drummer Terry Chambers under the moniker TC&I to record the brilliant EP ‘Great Aspirations’ and the follow up live album ‘Naked Flames: Live at Swindon Arts Centre’. Moulding of course wrote some of XTC’s most iconic pop songs including “Making Plans For Nigel’, …
Droppin’ Knowledge: 03CAS, Hip Hop’s Monet, Creates Painterly, Impressionistic Music That Defies Easy Categorization
When the musician and experimental hip hop iconoclast 03CAS emigrated from South Africa to the United Kingdom, he landed at London’s Heathrow Airport with little more than the clothes on his back. “It was the first time I was on a plane,” recalled the artist, born Caleb Mateus, as he recently recounted his early days …
Scratch the Surface: Urusei Yatsura – We are Urusei Yatsura (1996, Ché Records)
If you long for those messy days of the mid-90s, where Glasgow seemed to be a melting pot of angular, noisey, and messy indie rock and roll and pop punk, inhabited by Bis and Mogwai and the likes, then this is the Scratch the Surface for you, as it features fine purveyors of such things …
Droppin’ Knowledge: Behind The Boards With Santa Cruz Sound Czar Eddou XL
And we back…and we back…nah, nah, nah… Santa Cruz sound czar Eddou XL joins today’s version of Behind The Boards. The California-based producer, beat maker and instrumental hip hop creator often finds inspiration in the sounds around him, both in the natural world, and in the work of other artists he admires. He frequently uses …
Feature: Gizelle Smith gives us the lowdown on her new album, Revealing, track by track
We’ve fallen for Gizelle Smith somewhat here on Backseat Mafia. The daughter of late Four Tops songwriter Joe Smith and vocalist of German funk ensemble The MIghty Mocambos, Smith recently released her new album Revealing via the much lauded Jalapeño Records label. It’s an album that never strays wholly away from that classic Soul/Funk sound, …
Feature: 10 years on – Dananananaykroyd on memories, the wall of cuddles, and Demi Lovato
The summer of 2011 was Dananananaykroyd’s last. The Scottish ‘fight-pop’ band had formed in 2006, armed with two drummers, two vocalists, and an entire arsenal of post-hardcore pop songs. Their debut album, Hey Everyone!, was released to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic and somehow became a favourite of Disney Channel star Demi Lovato …
Live: Confidence Man/A. Swayze and the Ghosts/King Stingray – Dark Mofo Festival 2021
I’m not sure I can remember such a brilliant triple line up in one night without attending a full blown musical festival. Three bands just about removed the roof of the Odeon Theatre in Hobart and I left with a rictus grin I couldn’t remove for hours. Actually, it’s still there. Confidence Man and A. …
Live: Gavin Bryars and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra perform ‘Jesus’ Blood Never Fails Me Yet’ – Dark Mofo Festival 2021
Dark Mofo has been through an abyss, assailed at all sides by a potent cocktail of challenges stemming from its prescient cancellation last year due to COVID, missteps on the way to curating a challenging agenda this year, the virtual ban on overseas tourists and the ever present threat of lockdowns domestically (in fact one …
Premiere: The legendary Even As We Speak provide us with an exclusive look at the stunning and exquisite video for their moving new single ‘Child’
Even As We Speak‘s glorious and incandescent album ‘Adelphi’ (released through Shelflife Records) made it to my list of the best albums of 2020 from Australia and New Zealand. It has, to quote myself, a fragile and elegant beauty that is hypnotic and immersive. It therefore comes as an immense honour to premiere a spectacular …
Droppin’ Knowledge: On His Latest Album, McKinley Dixon Keeps It Real & Brings It Home
If you asked hip hop artist McKinley Dixon to name the greatest rapper of all time, you might be surprised by his answer. The Richmond Virginia-based musician, who grew up in Maryland and New York City, is unequivocal: the late American novelist, essayist and poet, Toni Morrison. “She’s the greatest rapper of all time. Even …