Indie Archives - Backseat Mafia

Music

News: Dark Mofo Festival unveils the eclectic 2026 musical lineup as well as the usual spectacular arts and performance events

Every year the world waits with great anticipation and bated breath for the details of the Dark Mofo Festival menu, and we can bring them to you today. It’s a…

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EP Review: Big League unveil the anthemic swagger of ‘Windanswagger’ ahead of Australian/New Zealand tour

We had the privilege of premiering Big League‘s single ‘Neverlandfill’ towards the end of last year and the band has now delivered an EP entitled ‘Windanswagger’, filled with the pulse…

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Track: Tractor Beam’ finds Snail Mail exploring dissociation and distance

There’s a moment in Snail Mail’s new single ‘Tractor Beam’ where everything seems to lift, not in triumph, but in escape. It’s a feeling that runs through the track like a current, a quiet…

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Track: ‘Mother Please Forgive Me’ – Electro goth maestros Caligula reign supreme with their new emotional anthem.

It’s playtime again for the magnificent Caligula they follow up last year’s live gigs celebrating thirty years of sonic success and their comeback single last year (see my review here),…

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Track: Julia Cumming captures the fragility of memory on ‘Please Let Me Remember This’

There’s a fragile kind of clarity running through ‘Please Let Me Remember This’, the new solo offering from Julia Cumming. Built around trembling piano and gauzy, slow-drifting guitars, the track moves with…

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Track: Warmer (solo project of Sydney singer-songwriter John Encarnação) goes on a ‘Pitchfork Barndance (feat Dave Carter)’

Sydney singer-songwriter John Encarnação is a pillar of the indie music scene in Australia, known for his involvement in one of our favorite institutions The Nature Strip. Under the guise…

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Track: ‘Labour Of My Love’ sees For Nina refine their quiet intensity

There’s a quiet kind of confidence that doesn’t announce itself, it just settles in and refuses to leave. On ‘Labour Of My Love’, Dublin trio For Nina lean into that space, returning with…

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Track: ‘I Have Always Loved You’ sees Freya Ridings at her most exposed and assured

There’s a moment in every artist’s arc where reinvention stops being aesthetic and starts becoming survival. On Mother Of Pearl, Freya Ridings arrives at exactly that point, emerging not polished but forged. Announced…

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Track: Lykke Li sharpens her sound on haunting new track ‘Knife In The Heart’

There’s a particular kind of pop song that doesn’t so much arrive as it seeps in, slow and inevitable, like a bruise blooming under the skin. With ‘Knife In The Heart’,…

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Track: Future Islands mark 20 years with From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth

Anniversaries tend to invite simplification. A neat timeline, a run of highlights, the familiar arc from breakthrough to legacy. Future Islands have never been particularly interested in that kind of…

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