folk-pop
Album Review: Modern Studies – Swell To Great
It’s not that we ignored it – Its just that we completely missed September’s release of Modern Studies album Swell to Great, and as Matt H muses – more’s the pity. Even in this day and age, with bands increasingly self-releasing their stuff online and at gigs, there’s still a place for a record labels. …
EP: Braver Than Fiction – The Fool
Braver Than Fiction can take their comparisons with the mighty Fleetwood Mac as more than just a flattering musical connection as the Sheffield outfit have a bumpy road behind them involving line up swaps and health problems. The five piece describe themselves as “dark loungey swagger” on their Facebook page and combine diverse backgrounds and …
Album Review: Peter Nordberg, Om man inte är här
Peter Nordberg puts his acoustic guitar to one side and fills your mind with detailed electronic soundscapes you can’t help but explore. It is not easy reviewing music when the lyrics aren’t in your native language. But music transcends the spoken languages communicating with you through tonal variations of vocals and instruments, timbre (musical texture), …
New Music: Monkey Swallows the Universe – Sheffield Shanty II, plus live date
It’s niche, I grant you, but for some people somewhere (probably, in all honesty, Sheffield) the news that there is new music from folk/indie poppers Monkey Swallows the Universe, and a live date as well will be causing great excitement and gnashing of teeth and vexing of cattle and the like. Possibly. To be fair, …
See: Steve Mason releases new video for “Planet Sizes”
In the past, former Beta Band frontman Steve Mason has been both crippled by both debt and depression, but it looks as though he might be in a better place right now with the forthcoming ‘Meet the Humans’ album out on February 26th via Double Six. Planet Sizes is the first track to be taken …
Track: Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros – No Love Like Yours
Los Angeles collective Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros have announced the release date of their 4th album. Titled PersonA via Community Music, the ten song set will be available on April 15th. Of the group, singer/bandleader Alex Ebert says “We had long been a social experiment first, musicians second. Over time, though, we were …
Track: Nations of the Soul – To the Loved Ones
Born in France, but now resident in Norway, brothers Mikael and Lucas Roussel – aka Nations of the Soul, have supported the likes of Hudson Taylor after scoring second place at Eggstock Festival. Their first single, Dancing Spirit, was picked up and cherished by the press and radio stations in their adopted home, and they’ve …
Premiere: Will Joseph Cook releases video for “July”
Without trying to be stalkers of Will Joseph Cook, we are becoming slightly obsessed with the Tunbridge Wells singer-songwriter, as so its rather a treat for us here at Backseat Mafia to premiere (a slightly posh word for doing nothing more than previewing it, before it goes live on his own media, but you know, …
Southern Sunrise – Elspeth
Before we get into this, I ask that you set aside the tweeness of naming a song “Elspeth” and the connection that will inevitably form in your mind between the guitars in this song and Noah and the Whale’s execrable “5 Years’ Time” (pedant’s note: fuck’s sake, they didn’t even add the apostrophe – I …