pop
Album Review: Grimes – Miss Anthropocene
On Friday 21st February, Grimes released her highly anticipated 5th album and 3rd on 4AD Records MISS ANTHROPOCENE The album title stems from the words Misanthrope, “a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society” and Anthropocene, “the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and …
Track: Hayley Mary – Like A Woman Should
Hayley Mary has just released a new single and video for her song ‘Like a Woman Should’ in anticipation of her forthcoming EP, ‘The Piss, The Perfume’ due out on 17 January 2020 through I Oh YOU Records. Mary – real name Hayley Frances McGlone – has form: she was in Australian band The Jezabels …
Premiere: Elder – wabi sabi
Backseat Mafia couldn’t be more pleased to premiere the extraordinary single ‘wabi sabi’ from Brisbane’s Elder: a song that is so innovative and exciting and quite mesmerising. It heralds the beginning of another stunning year from the stable of 4000 Records. With crystal sharp splashes of guitars, drums and bass, the song is alike a …
Classic Compilation: Clifford T Ward – Gaye and Other Stories
The aging process is a strange thing and effects us all in different ways. Some of us barely notice it, there are those that do all they can to hold back the ravages of time, and there are those that accept it with a wry smile and open arms. There was a time when the …
Not Forgotten: The Beautiful South – Welcome to the Beautiful South
There are some songs from your childhood that you clearly remember hearing on the radio for the first time. It was summer 1989, and it was a period of change in my life which my ten year old self was feeling pretty optimistic about. My family were about to move house, I was about to …
Classic Album: The Beatles – Abbey Road
Chronologically the final album that The Beatles recorded together, the general public’s appreciation for Abbey Road seems to increase each year, despite it being very much an album of two halves. Side one of Abbey Road is patchy and is unique in the fact that George Harrison’s contributions make for the two strongest tracks here, finally allowing the quiet one …
Album Review: Lizzo – Cuz I Love You
I’m not a Lizzo fan. For starters I’m too white, too male, too middle aged, too cis to appreciate Lizzo on absolutely every level that she deserves to be appreciated on. I am not part of her ‘intended audience’. However, the fact that when I saw the broadcast of her recent appearance at the Glastonbury …
EP Review: Greta Stanley – Sun In My Eyes
It’s the spaces in between the ethereal beauty of Greta Stanley‘s vocals that make her music so mesmerising. Think later stage Radiohead – delicate, sometimes sparse, musical pattering serving and augmenting the song and the voice. Stanley has long impressed us here at Backseat Mafia and ‘Sun in My Eyes’ displays a stunning musical progression, …
Not Forgotten: Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs – Under the Covers Vol. 2
When the Under the Covers collaboration between power pop veteran Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles fame was announced, there must have been a fair bit of head scratching from fans of one but not necessarily the other. Then you hear their voices together and it makes absolute sense. Hoffs, despite her Paisley …
Track: Friendly Fires – Silhouettes, Plus Album News
Friendly Fires have distilled the sounds of summer for new track ‘Silhouettes’ and now share details of their eagerly awaited third album. It’s been eight years since the release of their epic and glorious second album Pala and I had long ago come to terms with the fact that the band I had fallen in …