Indie track
Track: Harkness – ‘The Occasion’: a cloak, a mask and a grand line in orchestral baroque pop from the mysterious Canadian
THE MYSTERIOUS, cloaked and visored figure you see is Harkness; as with Bob Log III, we know not who sits behind the guise. Best then to turn to what we do know; that he comes from Canada (or indeed, beyond), bearing a very special brand of baroque psychedelia, shifting through the moods and time signatures …
Track: KINDER – ‘Call Out’: an emotionally thrilling voice that seizes your heart
LEO WYATT comes to us from the heart of the capital with a luxurious and haunting line in expansive, (semi-) acoustic songcraft, and boy, that voice; betcha your bottom dollar that you haven’t heard anyone roll out a song so hauntingly since you first clapped ears on OK Computer. “Call Out” is his second single, …
Premiere: New Zealand’s Nik Brinkman produces a languid and dreamy ‘Candy’, infused with a psychedelic haze
New Zealand artist Nik Brinkman has the languorous, snarling indifferent vocals of The Jesus and Mary Chain mixed with a dreamy, multicoloured haze that, in his new track ‘Candy’ that we are very honoured to premiere today on Backseat Mafia, creates an absolutely delicious piece of punky psychedelia. Hazy reverb and flange soaked instrumentation waltzes …
Track: Cosmic Crooner’s ‘Popsicle Place’ comes highly recommended as a slice of doowop space pop
AMSTERDAM-based singer-songwriter Cosmic Crooner is back in his own Willy Wonka-esque dreamworld of sleazy cool with his new single, “Popsicle Place”. Following the release of his debut, Nouvelle Vague-inspired single “Deep Down In Jazz”, Cosmic Crooner hits all the notes when it comes to bringing the quirks and charm of 70s’ psychedelic lounge music. I …
Track: Paper Birch – ‘Love For The Things Yr Not’: Fergus from Urusei Yatsura’s new duo drop a deliciously Velvetsy lo-fi noise-country outing
PAPER BIRCH is the new experimental lo-fi brainchild of Fergus Lawrie, founder member of cult Glaswegian indie rock scourers Urusei Yatsura (check the low-slung brilliance of “Fake Fur”), and Dee Sada, elsewhere of London experimentalists NEUMES and An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump. The two seekers found each other as everything kinda …
Track: Happy Axe spins gossamer chamber-folk delight with ‘One Morning’ – there’s even a musical saw
HAPPY AXE is the gossamer-delicate, intimately confessional dream-folk project of Canberra-born, Melbourne-based Emma Kelly, who’ll be releasing her second album, Maybe It’ll Be Beautiful, early in July. And she’s been kind enough to share a delicate gem from that, her second album; “One Morning” is whispery with reverb, processes through the secret garden on fragile …
See: Werewolf Hair – ‘Snipe’: blasting outta VA with the righteously dirty lo-fi stoner garage blues
WELCOME aboard ship Andy Godwin, the player of both straight and pedal steel guitar, born in the collegiate city od Ann Arbor, Michigan, but these days based deeper into the hills of Virginia. His lycanthropic locks are ready and waiting to welcome you into his musical world, which door he’s opening today with the razor-sharp, …
Track: Vintage Fiction – ‘Alright, Okay’: a little nugget of sundazed LA psych-pop bliss
YOU CAN so hear it their sound, if you ask me: the sun. The West Coast gleams through those burnished guitars, those dusky vocals, fair glows from the song as a whole in the way the first Avi Buffalo album does; early House of Love does. Languor, sleepy eyes, coastal bliss. Formerly trading as DIAZ, …
Track: BC Camplight – ‘I’m Alright In The World’: Brian returns with a melodic mantra to guard against the dark and announces an extensive UK tour
HE’S BACK, with new melodies to entice, following last year’s Manchester trilogy-concluding album Shortly After Takeoff – an album embraced and drawn close by British music lovers; BC Camplight has opened his account for 2021 with the bright, loose, and melody-packed “I’m Alright In The World”, which you can watch the lyric video for, below. …
Track: Pastel Coast – ‘Distance’: summery dream pop from the Calais coasts
HAILING from the shores of Boulogne-sur-mer, on the French north coast, Pastel Coast are on land, looking out over the waves; as the Cocteau Twins once said with dreamy ecstasy, “Sea, Swallow Me”. Led by Quentin Isidore, the band have one maritime-inflected album under their belts, 2019’s Hovercraft, which is bookended by the title track …