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Vampire Weekend – Ya Hey
On Jools Holland’s Hootenanny 2010 they won me over. I’d resisted for God knows what reason, possibly because my friend Jo wouldn’t fucking shut up about them before I had even heard a song. I guess it might also be because at that particular time when all I knew was that one of their lyrics was “who …
Paper Crows – White Noise: New Music
There was a time when my enjoyment of electronic pop was maimed by La Roux. It was a combination of finding her hectoring voice irritating, and the music being a little bit too much throwback 80s (either chart music from that period or something like the soundtrack to a spectrum 128K game). Then Paper Crows …
New Music: Josef Salvat – Hustler
I started writing this thinking that maybe Josef Salvat sounded a bit like James Blake but then i realised that the only time I had heard James Blake was on Jools Holland and I wasn’t really paying attention so I had to go and listen to some James Blake (we might come back to that …
Kodaline – Love Like This: Single Review
You can’t fault the timing of Kodaline’s record company. RCA presumably have a bank of eggheads working in a basement somewhere under their New York Headquarters running complex predictive algorithms to check the likely content of the British summer. They could have just asked someone. The streets of London are full to the fucking brim …
Listen: Sam Pinkerton – Calling You Out
Late evening sun on Portland stone against a background of only sky blue. Who knew this would ever come to London again ? But it did, and seeing that sight always makes my heart lift and wish to be outdoors drinking in the fresh air, a cold beer and laughing in arms-touching proximity to friends. …
Album Review: The Flaming Lips – The Terror, track by track
30 years ago the world was a very different place. The brinks matt robbery took place at Heathrow Airport, wearing a seat-belt became law, cabbage patch dolls were all the rage, and Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. The charts were filled with Phil Collins, The Police and Michael Jackson. Somewhere in Oklahoma, …
Album Review: Daniel Johnston – Space Ducks
I think I might have had my mind melted. I was just checking out some of the comic book for which this album is the soundtrack and the combined experience is powerfully psychedelic. I have to admit to not having read the comic cover to cover (not enough time), or having bought and played the …
Album Review: Vinyl Floor – Peninsula
A lot of what we listen to and write about on Backseat Mafia has one thing in common: potential. And that’s what I feel in this album from Denmark’s Vinyl Floor. “Peninsula” is a concept album broken into two sides – the first is utopia, the second dystopia, albeit finishing on a minor-key upturn …
News: Tru Thoughts reveal London Posse Gangster Chronicle / Money Mad Reissues
Just as the generation before listened to The Beatles, Stones Animals et al do their versions of the American RnB classics, before making their own versions of them, and indeed taking the Americans on at their own game (so to speak) so in those first exciting days of hip-hop many British groups from all over …
New Music: O Emperor – Holy Fool
It’s Sunday morning and I’m about to have my first cup of coffee. I’ve had five minutes to spare so I spent them wandering around bandcamp. I got pretty lost. There’s just so much in there. I had to adopt the same approach that I take when trying to decide what beer or wine to …