Posts in category

Soundtrack of our Lives


Blasting off as they meant to go on with influential singles ‘Going to Heaven to See if it rains’ (October 1986) and Never Seen Before (April 1987), plus an appearance on the seminal C86 compilation from the NME, Close Lobsters immediately proved themselves to be leading exponents of scuffed up indie pop/rock. The band – …

THEY came bursting outta Brizzle on the back of one-foot-in-the-Spector-camp fizzbomb pop classics like “Shimmer” and “I Could Be In Heaven”. And this year, a mere 34 years after their first show, Bristol indie-pop-punk band The Flatmates released their eponymous first studio album and official debut LP on their alma mater, The Subway Organisation.  The …

The Special Pillow are old hands at this indie pop game, having recently celebrated their Silver Jubilee, but are still mixing up 60-pop with a touch of psychedelia here and a serving of antipodean 80s indie there. Their new mini-album ‘Worlds Finest’ is out at the end of the week, and see’s the band – …

If you think it all began and ended with You’re Gorgeous, a song which catapulted Stephen Jones into the mainstream 22 years ago (number 3 in the UK charts) , then you’d be mistaken. He’d already recorded a handful of records by that point, and since then, with the help of bandcamp he’s released nigh …

Athens based linguist/rapper Mariah Parker, aka Linqua Franqa, has her debut album The Model Minority released today via HHBTM Records. As expected from someone with a masters degree in linguistics, the record covers a range of topics includingemotional instability, self-harm, depression and the like with skill, insight and a poetic sense of the real life. …

I don’t really know why I’m a fan of Mark E Smith and The Fall. Is it the uanabashed Northernness? Is it the mastery of prose? or maybe the fact that he never forgot his roots? I don’t know, but what I do know is that for whatever reason once I’d entered the Wonderful and Frightening …

Once classed as Leeds’ best kept secret, Post War Glamour Girls have well and truly emerged from the shadows. Their skewed observational lyrics and baroquish approach to sound, has seen them earn a following and respect that far out reaches the confines of their West Riding home. Their, soon to be released, third studio album …

What do Drake, The Weeknd and Justin Bieber have in common? They all come from Toronto, the largest city in Canada. They have dominated global music charts throughout 2015-16 with their catchy pop tunes. And they also love to praise their home city, making Canada sound like a cool new place to make music. But …

Hot on the back of his third album, US hip-hop artist River Nelson has picked out some of his favourite hip-hop records into a playlist for us here at Backseat Mafia. ‘How to dream’ is the follow up to his acclaimed albums T​he Rise and Fall of River Nelson ​ and T​he Shape of the …

And so the champion made his exit, and the man born Cassius Clay, the ‘Louisville lip’, the three time Heavyweight champion of the world left us, surrounded by his family at the age of 74. Ever since winning Olympic gold medal at the 1960 games and turning professional he told us he was the greatest, …