Music
Feature: Joshua Brandler – A Rise in Music Consciousness.
It’s inspiring to witness a rise in conscious music, and I don’t just mean the trend in improvised, free music, in the worlds of jazz, electronica and your almost traditional free improv format. I’m referring to a carefully crafted and consciously aware song form that literally focuses on highlighting community and raising our energies to …
Album review: Conrad Clipper – ‘Heron’s Book Of Dreams’: a pseudonymous, textural ambient gem
Heron’s Book of Dreams is glorious. It knows what to do, it knows what you need, and never aims for cheap and maximal when stripping back, excellent arrangement and contrast can do the job. Think a slightly more abrasively edged, more intimate A Winged Victory For The Sullen. A very beautiful record for people who love the interstices where ‘flesh and blood’ instrumentation gets it on with drones. Delightful.
JJJJJerome Ellis signs to NNA Tapes and shares the infinite music of ‘Fountain #3’
Composer, translator, poet, and performer, JJJJJerome Ellis has signed for Brooklyn’s curating imprint of the beautifully leftfield, NNA Tapes (a label which is also home to other artists we’ve delighted in in recent months, such as the absolutely gorgeous piano-meets-sounds of the world as it is aesthetic of Ben Seretan, and the brittle guitar experimenta …
Track: Lycanthro – Crucible
Canada’s four-piece thrash power metal band Lycanthro has a new album in the works, ‘Mark of The Wolf’ and the first taste is the single ‘Crucible’. ‘Mark of The Wolf’ is a combination of old and new songs; back in 2017, Lycanthro released a four-track demo that received great feedback, but the quality left something to be desired. Three of those four tracks …
Track: Dornenreich – Der Freiheit Verlangen nach goldenen Ketten (Freedom’s Desire for Chains of Gold)
Dornenreich have unveiled the second single ‘Der Freiheit Verlangen nach goldenen Ketten’ (‘Freedom’s Desire for Chains of Gold’) taken from their forthcoming album ‘Du wilde Liebe sei’ (‘You Wild Love Be’) due 11th June via Prophecy. Dornenreich comment: “The track ‘Der Freiheit Verlangen nach goldenen Ketten’ is in my mind probably one of the most dramatic pieces that has ever been created …
See: Desperate Journalist – ‘Fault’
Desperate Journalist return with the brutal beauty of new single ‘Fault’. London-based quartet Desperate Journalist (Jo Bevan, Simon Drowner, Rob Hardy and Caz Hellbent) have announced the release of their fourth album, ‘Maximum Sorrow!’ (out on 2 July via Fierce Panda Records), which was recorded entirely in Crouch End in lockdown. Visceral new single ‘Fault’ …
See: CHVRCHES – ‘He Said She Said’
CHVRCHES use the powerful punch of their unique brand of electro-pop to address men’s attitudes towards women in hard-hitting new single ‘He Said She Said’. “Being a woman is fucking exhausting and it felt better to scream it into a pop song than scream it into the void”, says CHVRCHES frontwoman Lauren Mayberry of new …
EP Review: Graywave unveils the seismic dream pop delight ‘Planetary Shift’
Here at Backseat Mafia, we have been lauding the dream pop aural landscapes Graywave has created through a series of singles released over the past year. Graywave – the nom de plume of West Midland’s multi-instrumentalist Jess Webberley – has now released an EP entitled ‘Planetary Shift’ through the boutique Brisbane label False Peak Records, …
Track: New Zealand’s The Datsuns explode back into the ether with ‘Dehumanise’ and announcement of a new album.
It is recommended that you have your emergency contacts nearby when you intake the new single ‘Dehumanise’ by New Zealand’s Lords of Loud, The Datsuns. It has the full force a bolt of electricity administered by a faulty defibrillator and the effects will be felt in your ears hours after administration. And what a cathartic …
Track: Stoneside – History Of Violence
Texan band ‘Stoneside’ have released their debut single, ‘History Of Violence’. Stoneside of Crane (writer, vocals, instruments and co-arranger) and Wheeler (drummer and co-arranger). The track also has a sinister backstory, as vocalist Crane elaborates: “Down here in Texas, there is a place called the Prison Farm Cemetery. After the Civil War ended in the south, …